The Essential UX Interview Questions (And How To Answer Them!)

what are some of the most common questions that come up in a ux design interview and how should you go about answering them in this video we'll break down some of the most important questions that i hear all the time and equip you with the mindset and tactics to answer them successfully the tips tactics and mindset that i'm going to share with you come from years of personal experience being interviewed for ux design roles and hiring ux designers to work with me on my teams my name is dee and i've been involved in design leadership

and worked as a ux designer for over 12 years hopefully the tips i share with you in this video will help you in your ux interview as you're watching this video if you have any questions about the tactics i offer please let us know by writing a question in the comments and we'll get back to you as soon as we can [Music] let's think first about what a ux hiring manager is really looking to ascertain from you in an interview what this person is looking to find out is what it will actually feel like to

have you working in their team so as well as technical ability which is also important but not the primary goal in the interview they want to know what will it feel like to have this person sitting next to me and work with them every day can i trust the decisions that they will make when i when i give them work to do and will this person's values and way of working align with what the company wants to achieve and how the company is used to working it's really important to get into the mindset of the

interviewer as you prepare and think about how you will answer these kinds of questions because even though the interviewer will ask you questions that sound quite specific and even technical what they're trying to find out is how you think how you work and less about the technical side and more about you who you are and how you'll fit into that team it's important to keep this in mind as i'm detailing each of these common interview questions and how you should answer them and with that out of the way let's dive into question number one one

of the most commonly asked questions in a ux interview what is your favorite digital product and why and the important thing to note with a question like this is they don't really want to know what your favorite digital product is but they want to hear you articulate and clearly justify why you think some things are really good in digital products and why other things aren't specifically around ux design some really common ways that this is answered which could be considered the wrong way to answer this is to say something like i love spotify or i

love netflix because they have all the things that i want and i use it every day this is not an answer that's giving them any information about who you are and how you justify and describe good ux and bad ux features and ideas what they're really looking for is for you to describe and articulate which ux features and the way that those products were designed to do things like enhance user engagement and get people to keep coming back over and over again to use their product or how some of the features enhance discoverability of new

content how i can constantly find new and different types of movies or tv shows or be exposed to a steady stream of new music that you wouldn't otherwise have discovered so they're really wanting you to pinpoint those details and explain and justify why those design decisions were good ones they don't care so much about which products you love the most but they want to see that you have an understanding of what it takes to make a product successful so think about some of your favorite products look at them and see which one you can craft

a good story around where you can pre-think and identify features design choices and decisions that have gone into making that product and how you can articulate those well to the interviewer so the kinds of things you should think about before going into the interview room is what are some of my favorite products and think about why they keep your attention why maybe you're willing to pay for them why is it worth it to you why do you want to share it with friends and what are the things you like to share thinking about these kinds

of things will help you clearly articulate and justify in a ux interview what the good features are of a particular product that you love on to the next question why do you want to work here this is a common question in any type of interview and the really common mistake that people make is to explain some logistical reasons why they want that job right maybe it's in an area that they want to work in or a new city that they want to move to maybe it's paying the right amount of money or it's in a

field that they really want to branch out into and and become an expert at so if you're in an interview for a ux job and previously you had a slightly different role you don't want to say oh because i really want to get into ux design what that says to the interviewer is that you're using them as a step in your own career and that might be true for you but you shouldn't say that in the interview the company is wanting to pull out of you why they should hire you what value will you bring

to them how will you be an asset and help them grow their company and their team so if you give answers to this question that are more about what you want rather than what you can give to them then they won't really learn much about you and why you would be a good fit for their team so again free thinking about this kind of question is a really good idea otherwise you might find yourself giving these first answers that aren't really what they're trying to get out of you so here's a tangible example instead of

saying something like i really want to grow more in my qualitative user research skills that sounds like this is what you want to get out of the company you can simply rephrase this in a way that makes it feel more like this is what i can offer to you so instead you can say in previous roles i didn't get to do as much qualitative research as i would like and it's something i really feel is important i noticed that your company values qualitative user research and this is something where i feel like i can bring

a lot to your team so here you've actually said the same thing but in a way that sounds much more like you have a passion and experience that you want to bring to this company rather than saying i want to get this out of your company so with this kind of question why do you want to work for this kind of company pre-think about your answers and have two or three things ready and make sure you practice in advance you can rephrase your answers to make sure it sounds not like this is what i want

to get out of working for your company but rather this is what i have to offer if i would come and join your team can you walk me through one of the projects in your portfolio this question is aimed to understand in more detail how you work how you made the decisions that you do and what it would be like if you joined our team so the way you shouldn't answer this question is to explain every little logistical step and detail of the project who was working on it how many people what happened how long

all these little steps what they're looking for is to see where you made your decisions and why and where things went a little bit off track and how you got them back on track how you worked with others and what the difficult parts were and how you overcame them they want to hear the story of you and why you would be awesome to work with there's also a hidden purpose to this question they want to see how clearly and well you communicate to them so when they ask you a question walk us through this project

or tell us this story they don't really want to hear the full story of everything that happened they want to see how well you can distill and explain just the relevant details to clearly get the message across that they want to know about so this is really also testing your ability to communicate with people so here's a real example of how i would answer that question based on a project that i recently worked on first i'll do it a bit the wrong way and then i'll show you the right way so an interviewer has just

asked me walk us through this project and the wrong way to answer would be to say okay well this was an information architecture project and first we we started with a kickoff with the team and the the strategy and direction came from this particular person and then we did some sessions around information architecture and we did this card sorting exercise and on and on and on like that so what i'm doing there that's not really the right way to answer is explaining the logistics and the fundamental steps of the project which is not what they're

interviewing me for they don't want to hear all the steps of my project they want to hear about me and how i do things so the way i would answer this question well is to say this was actually a really exciting project the goal was to create a digital platform for online learning and knowledge sharing and the role that i had in that project was to do the information architecture run some sessions and workshops with multiple team members across the organization to still and define that information and then come out with a clear concept for

how we would move forward with that platform so here you can actually see i've covered a lot more ground and explained a lot more about the project and my specific role and the things that i did in actually less time than it took for me to ramble through that long logistical description earlier so that's what they want to see they're testing your communication skills and they also want to hear about the work that you did how you did it and the decisions that you made so with this particular question where they're asking you to walk

through a particular project in your cv think ahead of time which project and how you would distill and define those key moments and key points that they want to hear about who you are what you can do and how you work on to the last question describe a challenge that you faced and how you handled it and when someone asks you a question like this in the context of a ux interview they're going to be meaning what's a challenge that you faced as a ux designer in the ux design process or a challenge you faced

in teamwork but all around ux design what they're trying to find out is how you handle difficult situations and it's really good to think about this beforehand pick one or two situations that you've faced that were challenging which i'm sure there have been some make sure they're real because it really does pay to be able to answer this honestly and often even if you made a bad decision or failed in the outcome that you were hoping to achieve that's totally fine which is counterintuitive but they're really wanting to hear things like you can admit your

mistakes you can pivot and change your ideas when you know you're on the wrong track you can work well with other people so even if there's been a difficulty in the team you can acknowledge that and face that challenge and move forward together so acknowledging failure or difficulty in this particular situation is not a downside but actually rather an upside the biggest mistake that you can make answering this kind of question is to pretend that you've never faced any big challenges or if you did you overcame them all with ease that is not what happens

in real teams and real companies what they really want to see here is that you can acknowledge and admit when you have made a mistake and especially that you can identify when a mistake has been made and then you can move forward and try potential options and ways to get out of it especially working collaboratively with other people to give you a real example the story that i go back to when i'm asked this question in an interview is always back to the same case there was a project i worked on years ago where we

really thought we were on the right track and we were about to launch a new product we had done user research we had done multiple concepting stages been collaborative in the workplace and even built prototypes and tested them and then we realized right at the last minute that we had built our prototypes and done our user research on the wrong topics and we were about to launch this product that was supposed to solve a problem and we realized we had misdefined that problem and we were solving the wrong thing so this was a huge crisis

in the team and in the company we all felt like failures and we were afraid to admit it and figure out what we should do so the way that we move forward as a team was to acknowledge that we'd made a mistake that would really affect the success of our launch that we needed to delay hold back and reassess and do some more work to almost start from scratch but use what we had and reframe it in a different way so when i tell this story in interviews the interviewer hears important things about me and

how i work that i'm humble enough to admit when i'm wrong that i can take tough decisions to delay and roll back when i think we're not on the right track that i can work with others and bring other people together with me to help me make those tough decisions and that they could trust working with me as a designer because i know that these big things still won't trip me up really try and think back over the work that you've done different companies or projects you've worked on even a course that you're a part

of or even if you worked for a company where you weren't a ux designer so find those nuggets that the interviewer will really want to hear about not just about the mistakes that you made but how you face those challenges what options and alternatives you tried and how you eventually came out the other side this is where the interviewer really gets to see if you show them what you're really like how you really work and how you handle tricky situations hopefully these tips stories and recommendations help you to prepare for your next interview job interviews

can be really daunting but hopefully knowing what's coming and how to prepare for it can help you feel confident when you walk into the room if you enjoyed this video give it a like and subscribe to the career foundry channel for more ux and ui content just like this every week if you're interested in learning more about ux design career foundry have a great free short course you can sign up by the link in the description below i would love to know from you in the comments which interview tip was the most valuable to you

and why thanks so much for watching and i wish you the best of luck in your upcoming ux interviews see you again soon my name is dee and i've got long hair what they're trying to ascertain find ascertain sounds so cliff if you're interested if you should just sit slow down i have any questions about the tactics that tactics i offer you'll oftenly get asked in a ux interview oftenly that's a word cut that out