10 questions you’ll be asked in a user experience interview

Photo credit: Dai Ke

I just landed my first full-time role as a User Experience (UX) designer and officially closed my job search. After more than 40 coffee dates, phone calls, design presentations and one-on-one interviews, I’ve come up with this list of 10 UX questions that I found crucial in my search.

As a young designer breaking into the field, the world of design interviewing was foreign to me. I hope this can help others in the interview process and be a prompt to advance personal design perspectives.

The questions (and notes):

1. How do you define UX/design?

Focus on crafting a unique and specific definition that sheds light on who you are as a designer. Use this also as an opportunity to tell a story that provides context for your design perspective. However you define UX, make this a chance to add something personal.

I focused my definition around empathy and the importance of understanding the people I’m designing for. It allowed me to touch on my background in psychology, allude to past experiences I had doing anthropological research, and brought to light the importance of designing human-centered experiences.

2. What is your design process?

Everyone has a different design process (and that’s okay). What will matter is your ability to describe your process and explain the rationale behind your approach. It’s a good idea to have a standard ‘go-to’ process in mind, yet it’s important to acknowledge your design context. Different UX situations inevitably call for different UX processes. It’s a strength to understand your environment and determine a process that’s best fits for your situation.

Ask your interviewer for specifics. Respond to a particular design problem the company is facing or talk about a process you have used in a particular situation.

Through all my processes, my one constant is to ask the right questions before designing. It frames the way I approach a problem and guides me toward the appropriate UX strategy and tools going forward.

3. What are some apps or websites that you love?

When thinking about this question, consider your audience and have a range of apps/websites that can demonstrate a diversity of aspects you find important to design. When I was interviewing, I chose SquareCash, Lyft, and Meetup.com — all experiences I loved for different reasons.

SquareCash represented simplicity in design. It made money transactions painless and solved a problem I didn’t realize I had. Lyft represented a peer-to-peer service that was trust-worthy and delightful and leveraged local communities to foster sharing in my hometown (San Francisco) and beyond. Meetup.com represented a platform for community at scale and had provided a tribe for me no matter where I was in the world.

While touching on UI elements, try to paint a picture of your values as a designer. By choosing apps/websites that highlight your interests and elegantly solve your pains, you’ll make a memorable impression.