UX job interview questions

“Be true to the game, because the game will be true to you. If you try to shortcut the game, then the game will shortcut you. If you put forth the effort, good things will be bestowed upon you”

MICHAEL JORDAN - BASKETBALL HALL OF FAMER

Source: Wikipedia

If you read the quote above you might be wondering, hm... what does it have to do with a UX interview? Well, similarly to the practice in other fields, there is no workaround for preparing to these admittedly stressful moments with a potential employer, other than practising the hell out of it.

The questions below are not the full list (if even possible), but I promise you, by answering them all with your best knowledge and saying the answers out loud (hey mirror!), it will help you being a more confident applicant, because sometimes that's all we really need.

Thanks for looking at the quite long - and not particularly ordered - list but most of all, good luck!

Screening Questions

Tell us about yourself.

Are you living in ....[country]? Are you willing to relocate?

What tools do you use?

How did you get into UX Design? What’s your interest in the field?

What do you know about the company and the services/products we sell?

What's your past experience? What are you currently working on?

Can you describe some of skills you bring to the table?

Where do you go for inspiration?

What's your salary expectation for the role?

What design books, communities, conferences etc. do you admire?

Why do you want to work here? Why do you want to leave your current job?

What is your experience working in Agile environments?

HR Questions

Why do you want to work here?

Why should we hire you?

Do you prefer to work alone or with a team?

Tell me about an assignment that was too difficult. How did you handle the situation?

How do you approach working with designers? Developers? Project managers? Stakeholders? Clients?

What is your ideal workday as a UX designer?

Where do you see yourself in 5–10 years?

What are you looking for when it comes to a workplace?

What would be the most difficult type of client/manager to work with? How would you deal with this?

How do you feel about working for a small agency versus a large corporation?

Technical Questions

Can you explain what “User Experience Design” is to someone, using non-technical terminology?

What are some apps or websites that you love?

Who are your design heroes? What are your favorite apps for UX? Explain why.

What does the term “design thinking” mean to you?

What does it mean to be a great product designer?

If tasked to perform a UX evaluation of a product, what would your process look like to accomplish this? Can you tell me about a project you did this for and what the outcome of the evaluation was?

Can you speak to the difference between information architecture, interaction design, usability, and user research? When is it relevant to focus on one of these areas rather than another?

What are some of the biggest challenges you face as a UX designer?

What’s the difference between UX design and UI design?

If you design something and a developer told you “we can’t do that”, what would you do?

Describe a recent project that you found particularly challenging, and how you approached the problem.

Femke has useful resources on her Youtube channel, especially about salary negotioations and take home assignments.

UX Process

Describe a basic UX design process. Would that process be different depending on the type of project, for instance responsive website versus mobile app?

How do you get into the mindset of a user and anticipate their needs and actions?

What are the basic philosophies or principles that inform your designs?

Have you incorporated usability into the design and testing process?

How do you balance business needs and technical restrictions with good design?

Can you explain the process behind each (or a specific) design piece in your portfolio? What research or testing did you do to validate your design decision?

Which UX design techniques and approaches do you think are the most useful or effective?

What tools do you typically use for analysis? (e.g., affinity mapping, card sorting etc.)

Talk about a time when you had to change your UX plan or approach.

What do you do when a stakeholder disagrees with the results of your research?

What’s your biggest pet peeve when engaging on a UX project?

What is your approach to making websites and platforms accessible to all user groups, including users with visual, hearing, and motor disabilities?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of following a design system?

Why do you think research is important?

What is your experience with qualitative research methods? (e.g. ethnography, focus groups/group discussions, 1-on-1 interviewing, contextual inquiry, observational research, etc.)

What is your research process?

How do you choose which method(s) you’re going to use for particular projects?

What is the value of doing contextual research over facility-based research (e.g., focus groups, interviews)?

How do you approach qualitative data analysis?

Have you ever used a lean approach in your research?

How do you advocate for usability in your organization?

Have you given feedback on someone else’s designs before? What about receiving feedback?

What is your experience working with people who are unfamiliar with user-centered design?

Provide some examples of your experience dealing with user research and usability testing.

Curveballs

Tell me about a UX project that you’ve worked on that didn’t go as well as you’d hoped.

Can you describe a time when the requirements changed in the middle of a project, and how you handled that?

Have you ever faced a situation in which your feedback/recommendation was not taken? How did you handle the situation?

Give me an instance where you delivered something exceptional, something that made you really proud of the result.

When an engineer says, “Hey, I don’t like this design”, what do you do?

Tell us about your ideal team collaboration

Tell us about a time that you worked with teams outside of your immediate team

How do you prioritize what features you need implemented by others outside your team and how do you make the case for those?

When a client says, “I don’t like this design”, what would you do?

Artiom has a 7-step framework in his book for solving digital product design exercises, which comes for handy whiteboarding challenges or just tackling design issues in general.

NEED MY ADVICE?

If you need someone who helps to practice with you answering these questions, doing mock interviews for your next big opportunity or just helping in your career change in general I’m happy to help with both.