More resources:
- Source and recruit UX designers with Workable’s Boolean search cheat sheets.
- Tutorial: How to hire designers
- Tutorial: All the best places to recruit designers
UX Designer interview questions and answers
This UX Designer interview profile brings together a snapshot of what to look for in candidates with a balanced sample of suitable interview questions.
UX Designer Interview Questions
Methods for evaluating a UX (user experience) designer might seem obvious. You just take a look at the work they’ve produced. Certainly a thorough review of their portfolio is the best starting point. Setting them an assignment is equally important. Assuming that both of these are positive, the next step is to chat to them about user experience design itself.
- Who are their role models?
- Where do they go for inspiration?
- How do they keep on top of current design trends?
- What’s an example of great design (digital or physical)?
- What books/exhibitions/conferences or communities do they attend or admire?
- As a designer, what do they think is the most important aspect of their job?
What you are interviewing a UX designer, look for is an interest in design that stretches beyond the boundaries of their own specialisms. Are they aware of and capable of thinking critically about the design decisions that surround all of us in our everyday lives? A great user experience designer is thinking about improvements to these details.
Operational questions
UX Designer Portfolio Interview Questions
- Talk to us about your studies. Have you studied design?
- What’s your current occupation/What are you currently working on?
- Take us through a couple of your favorite pieces in your portfolio. What was your design process for these pieces? What problems were you trying to solve? How did you make a certain design decision?
- Tell us about a project that didn’t go as planned and the reasons that led to it.
- Do you have a side project you’d like to talk to us about?
Role-specific questions
UX Designer Technical Interview Questions
- How would you define user experience UX design?
- 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 vs another?
- Describe to us a basic user experience process. Would that process be different depending on the type of project, for instance responsive website versus mobile app?
- How do you know that what you’re designing works for the user? Tell us a bit about personas and your approach to research and incorporating research in your work?
- Tell us a bit about how you undertake user testing?
Behavioral questions
- Source and recruit UX designers with Workable’s Boolean search cheat sheets.
- Tutorial: How to hire designers
- Tutorial: All the best places to recruit designers
Pro tip: Always include an assignment as part of the hiring process. Here are some additional questions to go through with the candidate once they have submitted an assignment:
1. Talk through your design process and some of your decisions.
2. What would you do differently if you had more time?
3. How do you decide when a design is done?