Preparing For Your Next UX Design Interview (10 FAQs To Practice)

Congrats on getting the work done! Hats off to you, that portfolio sure looks snazzy, and the Linkedin is… Linkedining? You’ve established your online presence and populated platforms with impactful content for onlooking recruiters to peruse, and your resume is solid. Then suddenly, a metallic Ping of your smartphone notifying you of what you never thought possible:

“After reviewing your application and portfolio, ware excited to invite you to interview for the role of [ROLE READER REALLY WANTS HERE]”

Now for the hard part: articulation.

Below are a list of 10 questions that (more than likely) you can expect to asked by a hiring manager during a Design interview. Organization size and experience level for the posted role will influence who may be handling your interview, but hiring managers or potential managers are most frequently responsible for leading these discussions, both 1:1 and in panel format. NOTE: As noted, certain questions may be subject to role specificity or experience level, but I encourage a read through of them all.

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• Can you talk to me about yourself? … With this question, hiring managers want insights on how you operate within wider teams.
  What work have you notably been relied upon to produce, and how do your skillsets mesh cohesively as part of their ecosystem. Do you possess developed skills or specifications that are contextually relevant to the role you’re aspiring? Now would be the time to highlight as such. Desk research prior to the interview is helpful to avoid being verbose and “providing too much too fast” by capturing your audience’s interest quickly with related experience.
• Take me through your typical design process … Discover and define a problem, implement and deliver a solution. Asleep yet? Two things wrong here: 1) By now, a recruiter or hiring manager has heard about the double diamond process enough to recite it standing on one leg with their eyes closed, and you’ve likely put them to sleep. 2) Always ensure to ground your responses in real professional experiences. Next time you’re asked this question, don’t JUST answer with an articulately recited list of the 5-step design process; helping interviewers
  realize your inherent value in relation to current business objectives through storytelling.
• How do you approach understanding user needs and gathering requirements at the start of a project/sprint? … Otherwise known as “illustrate to me you know more than pushing pixels to make pretty UIs.” The level of experience a UX candidate has can be measured by understanding how early (and often) they’ve been involved in the product lifecycle. A strong response is formulated through articulating a vested level of empathy for consumer and their experience gaps, alongside a visceral understanding of how to tie solutions to core business objectives. Speaking to past UX Research experiences — Survey Design, Stakeholder Interviews, Qualitative/Quantitative User Interviews — is effective at accrediting yourself as someone who’s capable of managing moving parts across the entire product journey; capable of identifying problems, and implementing scaleable solutions.
• How do you prioritize feature implementation when working on a project with tight deadlines? … Having worked at companies with polarizing approaches as to where, when and how often user insights are considered, this answer may vary based on personal circumstance. How often your company conducts updated rounds of user research and testing, as well as how far into a project you are will both have an impact on your response. Therefore, it’s wise to identify two scenarios to showcase critical thinking. Consider the following two examples:
  A) “If our team was approaching this project as a net new ask, with little to no existing user insights relevant to the issue at hand, I would begin by seeking to identifying our target user base, the problem they’re experiencing, when it occurs, and how it inhibits the user experience. To streamline both time and resources in honour of speed to market, I would deploy a survey questionnaire to our pre-identified, consenting test groups to understand which portion of the market they occupy, pain points, relationships with relevant products, and buying behaviours. Our next task would be synthesizing the provided survey feedback through collaborative exercises such as Affinity Mapping and Effort-Impact Matrix Mapping, with the aim of prioritizing features to market against their perceived degree of user impact and effort to build.
  B) “If our product has already launched and we are currently focused on conducting in-market testing, less effort and finances are generally required to deploy subsequent feature sets, as user insights are already abundant and (hopefully) prioritized by their degree of user impact and perceived team effort. If Effort-Impact Matrix Mapping has already been completed, stakeholders can be informed of a longer-term-to-market plan earlier in the product journey, maximizing transparency and mitigating the cost-associated risks of rework.
• What do you believe are the most important qualities for a successful UX Designer/Researcher? … As Product Teams from world-leading Corporations like Slack, Meta and more continue to scale back on hiring amidst times of economic uncertainty, demonstrating a high degree of business knowledge should remain at the forefront of any Designer’s toolkit. What separates a good UX minds from the great is the ability to articulate the viability of newly ideated solutions to stakeholders. Achieving buy-in from key parties invested in your product is vital.
• How do you integrate privacy-by-design principles into your UX design process? … With the subject of data privacy continues to be a top investment concern for social technology giants like Meta, Amazon and Microsoft, the demand for working knowledge on data security and regional privacy laws has increased. Although subjective to the industry and organization you’re aspiring to join, the new normal of Cloud Computing has teams of varying scales rushing to invest in cyber security efforts. For my Canadians pushing pixels North of the border, The Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation are great resources to get yourself started.
• Can you share your approach to fostering creativity within a design team? … For all my team leaders out there, this one’s for you. Often reserved as a question for more senior roles, hiring managers will want to be confident in your abilities as a facilitator; empowering innovation through the creation of transparent systems within teams. At ground level, establishing routine 1:1 check-ins or daily scrums are a simple and highly effective way of tracking capacity, monitoring the status of open workflows, and garnering morale through open lines of communication. Working through a solution for a problem as a team? Hosting a Blue Sky Workshop aims to target new ideas through cross-channel ideation in an environment stripped of constraints (i.e. finances or time). With pre-existing business or market data on-hand for colleagues to reference, begin by clearly listing out the problem statement, alongside key objectives/success criteria for the session. In past, I have encouraged peers to explore across mediums. Participants are encouraged to prepare for the workshop by compiling a sample of digital experiences (user flows, micro-interactions, components, or even pretty screens — Mobbin is my favourite) to distribute and present findings from. What works from this presented example, and how can we apply this thinking / approach to our issue at hand?
• Why do you want to work at [COMPANY X]? … As mentioned, any response should aim to correlate your strengths and values with that of the company you’re interviewing for. I like to reframe this question in my mind to “What do we have in common?”. Of course, this isn’t a date, but it’s also not all that different. Onboarding new employees requires a large up front investment of capital and time, and companies want some reassurance that who they ultimately decide to hire resonates with business principles and is capable of solving for current skill gaps. Does the company actively post about unique processes / ways of working? How do your experiences translate into solutions for current challenges the org may be facing?
• How do you stay updated with the latest UX design trends and technologies? … With seemingly new products, programs and methodologies released daily, it’s imperative for UX Designers to remain curious, keeping ahead of rising industry trends and pivots. Luckily, fantastic resources are of abundance. Some of my favourite platforms for keeping up with industry insights are Product Hunt, Medium and E-Newsletters from industry pros like Kenny Chen. Being mindful of relevance to your area of focus, this is also where showcasing a curated assortment of personal works or passion projects on your portfolio really flashes its value.
• Do you have any questions for me/us? … Following the interview, hiring managers will normally provide you this moment as an opportunity to showcase your interest in the organization (What excites you about us?). Hence, failing to ask questions here might be a bad look. I like using this moment to gain more intimate insights regarding day-to-day internal processes. Can you take me through a normal day-in-the-life if a Designer working at Company X? How do Dev and Creative Teams most frequently collaborate? How closely is Business Strategy intertwined with Design (this being a favourite, as it will provide direct insight into how much an org realizes the business impact of good Design). Bottom line, express genuine interest and show interviewers that you are committed to this role long-term.

With the following information now known, I encourage you onward. Go forth valiantly into that video call or boardroom, and leave a lasting impact in your next design interview. I wish you nothing but luck!