UX Planet — Medium | Jesse Lee

When interviewing at different companies and navigating the field of design, there are bound to be times when designers ask you questions to test your expertise. Interviewing and talking to many big tech companies like Facebook, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft, I have devised a list of top questions that designers would most likely ask when going through the process.

Tell me about Yourself

Interviewers want you to tell your story of how you became a designer. Does it align with your overall values? Tell them why you are interested in design and align that with your personal goals and values. Tell an intriguing story that captures your interviewer’s attention and seek to establish a bond between their story and yours.

I talked about why I am unique compared to other candidates. I emphasized on my participation in hackathons, Model UN, hosting workshops, attending conferences, being a part of panels and venturing into the social impact space. There are many things that make you different. Employers want to see other parts of your life besides only doing design. This is how you stand out compared to other candidates.

What does UX Design mean to you?

Most of your design interviews, you will be asked this question. It might differ depending on what you want to focus on. You could talk about how UX relates to striking empathy with your users and how it should be a seamless experience that is natural for them to go through.

I would mention more about how you evolved into a designer. Make it into a story where there was success and failure involved. For me, I talked about how I had a background in visual arts and drawing and how that translated into understanding users and how to evoke the necessary emotions to make a great product. Tell a compelling story and build it up based off empathatic events so that you and your interviewer can establish a connection.

What is your design process?

Everyone has a different design process based on the type of project and the users that are involved. However, for most designers it is necessary to include your high level process on how you solve a problem and what skills you used during your process.

Research on the company beforehand and the team so that you can match their process with yours. For example, I was interviewing at Amazon and the company focuses on metrics and performance so I mentioned more about shipping the product, looking at pain points, comparing metrics and then iterating again. I focused less on the entire process but one particular part of it.

Which part of design do you like doing the most?

This question would determine what you like doing, your expertise based on your explanation, and if you are suitable for the role involved. Make sure you look at the job description and align that with what you like.

For me, I like being a product designer so naturally I would apply to positions that let me dive into user research, interaction design, visual design, and product management. But if I had to choose one area that I like the most I would say it would be interaction design because it lets me focus on using design thinking to come up with different solutions so that I could solve a particular problem based on pain points.

I also would mention understanding microinteractions and not just the happy path becasue there could be so many different interactions to solve a problem and understanding what happens if the user wants to go back, exit or deviate from the experience. The product has to accomodate for all journeys.

Tell me a time when you disagreed with a team member and what resulted from it?

In design, there are bound to be different opinions on a project but emphasizing with team members and understanding their reasoning behind their decision will push them to listen to your persepctive as well. Understand the truths in their perspective and shape an experience from it as you would when telling a compelling story. Back up your decisions through user research and emphasize your frequent communication with engineering, product, and design teams.

When interviewing at Amazon, most of their one on one interviews are situation based and started with “tell me a time”. I used the STAR method to tell a compelling story: Situation, Task, Action, and Result.

I mentioned a disagreement with core business team about how a feature should be designed differently. I talked about the research of the design feature and how the qualitiative and quantitaive analysis is supported wit my current design decision. I explored and explained the tradeoff involved and made sure to show them why this design decision was the best way to go compared to numerous others. Furthermore, I related this design decision back to how it solves the problem and what result would likely occur if it was implemented.

Why do you want to work here?

For each company there are values and principles that make up the culture. Research about what type of activities and work ethic is required and aligning those with what you have accomplished will help ensure that you are a cultural fit.

For example, interviewing at Facebook, one of their values was “move fast and break things.” One of the things that were mentioned was how the “Mark yourself as safe” feature was implemeted whenever a dangerous event has occured nearby. I aligned that with what I accomplished at hackathons where took the initiative to solve a problem and execute whenever a need arises.

At Amazon, the leadership principles are heavily emphasized and they are going to be heavily discussed during the majority of the onsite. I wrote down mini stories that related to each one and made sure to empahsize at least three other pronciples in each story.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

I relate this one to my design expertise and as a person as well. You could research the Internet and find well crafted answers but giving an honest answer based off your experience will help you stand out. Avoid saying things that are commonly said such as “I am a perfectionist and I sometimes tend to spend too much time on making things perfect”. You can say that but it will be missed opportunity to bring out more of your personality in the interview.

I would talk about interaction design and visual design as strengths and mention why I am good at it. For visual design, I pointed out how I managed to increase retention or achieve a business outcome by changing the placement, colour, or shape of a certain design and how I successfully met business goals when doing so. In terms of weaknesses, I would mention when I am conducting user research, I need to be able to probe in the right way so that I could derive the necessary results to support my hypothesis. Also mentioned about how I needed to improve on recognizing non verbal cues to see if their actions matches what they say.

How do you determine what features to make in a product?

Determine what the initial problem and long term goal for the project and start with the user first. Understanding the initial pains of your users and conducting user research to find out what their journey looks like and what areas they find pleasurable and undesirable is a good first step towards finding a solution to the problem.

Once the data, research, insights have been gathered then you move towards the solution. You have to express that you have collaborated effectively with different stakeholders such as developers, business, and engineers to understand constraints and which design decisions are the best ones to solve based on pains and the initial goal of the project.

Tell me a time when you failed.

Focus on talking on what you learned from the experience and how it helped you grow more. When interviewing at Microsoft, they wanted me to talk about how I showed initative and took a risk even if the end result is failure or success. Make sure to follow STAR when elaborating the mistake and use “I” a lot to illustrate that the mistake was yours and that you aren’t blaming other members it.

For Micosoft, I talked about a situation where I was leading a group in a design initiative. As I was doing so, I singled a member of the group out for a mistake he made. My learning there was to talk with the individual member first before consulting with the group. I tend to focus on scenarios where I was leading an initiative and how that initiave made me a better leader through certain failures.

How do you define success as a designer?

There are many ways you can define success as a designer, it can be through your daily rituals and habits to learning new skills as a designer. Employers want to see that you have goals to meet and that you can help them grow as a company in the future. They need to be able to see that you can work with other team members and that you can take feedback

When interviewing at IBM Design, I talked about how I like challenging myself going to hackathons and learning how to front end develop with a team and advancing myself to solve more problems and become more of a t-shaped designer. That includes understanding front end, research, interaction, visual, and business strategy so that I could excel and collaborate effectively as a designer. Employers want to see that you have a growth mindset and that you can evolve with the company and learn new skills as the tech world becomes more advanced.

Summary

Answering interview questions takes time and practice. Making sure your answers are different, unique and well thought out based off the company you are applying for will ensure you make an impression with the interviewers. For most tech companies, they will ask you to go through behavioural questions and numerous technical interviews. Making sure you research their design process and elaborate on the value of your skills and talent will help you stand out from the competition.

Top Questions UX Interviewers Ask was originally published in UX Planet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.