5 job interview questions when hiring designers
By: Adam Fard
Tags: Startup, Hiring, Ux Designer, Interview Questions, UX

Undoubtedly, when you are out in the market to hire a UX designer for your firm, start-up, venture or business, you are just as nervous and pressurized as the candidate in front of you. This is simply because you don’t want to make any mistake and lose a gem of a UX designer.

No worries. Here are a few interview questions for UX designers that you must ask your candidate.

1. Did you solve any problem area that was invisible but enhanced the overall user experience of the application?

Your candidate could provide a range of answers here. And believe us, there is no right or wrong. However, to judge your candidate, look for any indication in their answer that demonstrates their skills to handle complexity in a product. This will prove to be a testimony of their understanding of what UX is composed of.

Some possible answers could be removing a redundant step from the process, reducing the amount of data inputted, or developing a data-rich dashboard.

2. How do you understand the vision of the product and display it appropriately on the screen?

Needless to say, there are a lot of appropriate answers to this question. To understand the feasibility of this answer properly, it is important that you understand your vision properly. Analyze how the answer of your candidate aligns with your overall vision. Although they won’t necessarily be the same, they should resemble a large extent.

3. What will you term as an ideal working environment?

This an important question both for you and your candidate. It is essential that both the parties involved work in harmony with each other, and prove to be a great fit. For instance, if your candidate answers the questions with, “working in a team with vibrant and dynamic atmosphere”, and your company is a bunch of tech-geeks with everyone focusing on their tasks and no one speaking to each other, you can sense the incompatibility out there.

Similarly, if you prefer your employees to work remotely, and if this is not something that doesn’t go well with your candidate, you might need to reconsider.

Other important factors that you must bring into consideration include — how joyful will they be when working with you, do you have projects that are the right fit for their skills and interests, is the person in question trustworthy, and do their mission and vision statement aligns with the mission and vision of your company? Are they comfortable with the goal of your company and will leave no stone unturned in achieving that goal?

4. What UX tools do you commonly use?

This question is asked just for informational purposes and you should not base your decision solely on the answer to this question. Although tools play an important role, the tool match is not that important.

If your candidate knows one tool and not another, the chances are high that they will easily be able to pick up the different tools too. However, there are a few exceptions here. If you are hiring a UI/UX designer for an urgent project and want them to work on a tool right from day one, do not expect a quick turnaround time here. Your designer will take their own time, depending on the learning curve of the tool, and their grasping power.

Thus, the know-how of your designer on the UX tools should not be a subject of concern if you are hiring them for long term product development. However, if it is an urgent need, you should choose to hire someone who is already familiar with your preferred tools.

5. What factors do you keep in mind while designing for varied types of users?

This is an important question of the entire UX designer hiring process. Most UX designers answer this question with demographic data. However, an even more important factor here is triggers. What will trigger your potential user to use or choose your products and services? It is important that your product not only flaunts a user-friendly user experience but also compels your users to take the desired action.

While asking these questions is important, what is critical is to understand that there is no best designer in this world. There is only the BEST designer that suits your team well, fits any gap in between, and enhances the overall user experience of your product, thus helping your company move forward. Also, the next important question that you should ask include the expected UX designer salary. Don’t forget to ask for a UX designer portfolio.

Although the above-mentioned interview questions for UX designer will provide you with a brief overview of the candidate, here are a few additional questions which will help you in making the right choice:

Enquire them as to how do they keep themselves updated with the industry trends? Do they attend any conferences?

Give them a test task to analyze their problem-solving skills, designing skills, and communication.

The top UX designers have a degree in fields like graphic design, psychology, and human-computer interaction.

Do they come with any prior job experience? The size of the firm that they have worked with doesn’t play a vital role, but they must come with hands-on experience of a few months, if not years!

Look at how diverse is their portfolio. Prefer them if they have worked on a good mix of UX methods. If they have taken care of various stages of UX design — that’s an added plus. Also, have they worked on a range of applications — web applications, desktop programs, mobile applications, consumer applications and the like — that’s a bonus!

Further Readings

First seen at adamfard.com | How to Hire UX Designer