8 UX Interview Tips: How to Prepare for a UX Design Interview

Last Updated on August 28, 2024 by UX World

An interview is a process that helps recruiters find a suitable person who can fulfill their requirements in a desirable way. It includes a set of questions and answers to get an understanding of the other person about his/her skills, interests, and attitude.

Being a professional UX designer, you must appear in multiple interviews when searching for a job. At times, you rock in an interview and get a positive outcome in the form of your favorite job. Sometimes you might not be able to perform well and hence do not get the desired results.

However, taking these chances as learning opportunities helps you improve yourself and try harder for your next interview.

There are different ways to show outstanding performance in a UX interview. A few practical tips that can help you with your next interview are listed below.

Prepare well
Know about the company and your interviewer
Revise UX basics, even if you’re an experienced UX designer
Take along with your portfolio and make sure to include your UX process
Answer the questions that you are being asked
Take your time to solve a design problem
Always think aloud
Be honest, be confident, and be positive

8 UX Interview Tips - How to Prepare for a UX Design Interview — 8 UX Interview Tips – How to Prepare for a UX Design Interview

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1. Prepare well

The first and most important thing before an interview is the preparation. A lot of UX material is available on the web including useful interview questions and the best possible answers.

To avoid the overwhelm, find a few sites that serve you with the required content and are enough to follow to prepare well.
Read the given questions and answers carefully and try to map those answers to your knowledge and practical experience. A good source for UX-related interview questions can be found here.
Understand your potential employer and the interview questions they can ask. Glassdoor is a good source of interview questions for different companies. It also lists the reviews from former and current employees.
When you have a good collection of interview questions, organize them in a document by listing all the questions and answers.
Tweak the answers by adding your own experience to each of them. Keep adding the questions/answers in the same document so that it becomes your interview glossary.
When you are called for an interview, you can go through this glossary thoroughly and practice your answers multiple times in your mind. This will be your guide for interview preparation which will help you save your time.

2. Know about the company and your interviewer

The next important step in interview preparation is to research the company where you are going for your interview.

Explore the company’s website and discover their goals, products, and interests. It is also helpful to find information about the company on Linkedin, Glassdoor, Quora, and other related sites.
Using this information, modify your portfolio and include keywords from the desired job description to make it more relevant and appealing to your recruiters.

In some interviews, you would receive an email mentioning the names from your interview panel. Knowing about the interviewers is as important as researching the company. It is quite easy to find a professional on the internet.

Go to LinkedIn, and search their profiles. Know their experiences, past work, and portfolio as this will help you get familiar with the person and their achievements.
An interesting tip is to look at the recommendations they have received and given to others. This will help you understand their working style, their relationship with peers, and their values.
This knowledge will help you better communicate with them during the interview. Not only this, it would also help you reflect on this is the job you are looking for. If you are uncomfortable with someone’s working style, do you want to apply for the job?

3. Revise UX basics, even if you’re an experienced UX designer

You might have done a lot of practical work in the UX field for several customers. You will have many projects to show and describe in your interview. However, it is still important to revise the basics.

Revise the UX design concepts, as sometimes we absorb too much in practical work and ignore the usage of related terms and phrases.
The recruiters may not ask you the definition of information architecture or interaction design, however, it will give a good impression if you use similar terms while explaining your design process.
Use a language with UX keywords and show them you have a good command over UX concepts, and you can help your customers realize the value of UX design
It also shows that you have good knowledge and can mentor your juniors.

4. Take along with your portfolio and make sure to include your UX process

To earn a UX job, prepare a design portfolio showing all the necessary information.

To create an impressive portfolio, it is better to research a few useful tips that can help you when you organize your work in a portfolio.
Review portfolio examples from professional UX designers and see how they explain their projects. Behance and Dribble are the two most common sites containing hundreds of good portfolios from professionals.
Discuss the process you follow while working on your design projects. Start with an idea, explain your process of converting that idea from wireframes and images into prototypes, and how you get the client’s feedback.
Prepare a mix of examples, like having a user flow, prototypes (both low-fi and high-fi), a few mockups, a case study, an A/B test that went well, etc. This will help recruiters understand your thought process.
Include recommendations from your clients or your organization.
Explain the value you add to business through your design work, and also describe the impact of your work on your user’s lives.
Add links to your professional social media profiles to support your experience.

5. Answer the questions that you are being asked

At times, some candidates are eager to share their experiences in much detail. The right length for interview answers is one to two minutes.

Give clear and precise answers specific to the questions.
Provide examples to support your answer, but don’t try to speak each and everything you know about UX.
If you provide solid information in your answer, you can deliver more in less time and its impact will be greater.
Providing long answers containing irrelevant information can spare extra time, and it may not help you in any way in your interview.

6. Take your time to solve the given design problem

It is a common approach to have a design task or exercise as part of your UX interview. This helps recruiters gauge your thinking process, imagination power, and creativity. This is a tricky part of your interview and requires an attentive mind.

When you get a design problem to solve, always ask for a few minutes to understand it, though most of the time you will get it without asking.
Read or listen to the problem carefully. Whatever has been asked in the interview, translate it in your mind to your own words and thoughts. Ask questions to clarify the problem.
One useful tip here is to relate the problem to a design task you have already worked on. This will help you to go through the same process of ideation, user flows , sketches, and layout. It would be easier for you to solve the problem and present it to the interview panel.
Usually, there is no right or wrong answer to a design problem. However, it is a good opportunity for you to show your design process and problem-solving skills.

7. Always think aloud

To answer a question in your interview, think aloud as this will help the interview panel understand your problem-solving approach, an essential requirement for a UX job. This is an important protocol when you are solving a design problem.
Lengthy silent periods can harm you as they will give no clue to the recruiter about your thought process.
This is even more essential for a remote interview where face-to-face conversation is not held.

8. Be honest, be confident, and be positive

During an interview, always be honest in your answers, be confident about your knowledge and skills, and be positive in your communication.

A big mistake you can make in an interview is not presenting yourself as a professional worker. Good UX skills but an undesired behavior can harm you in an interview.
Be honest when you are explaining your work. If you don’t know the answer to a question, there is no harm to admit it. However, don’t forget to show your willingness to learn new concepts and trends.
Be confident when giving your answers. You have the required knowledge and skills, that’s why you are giving the interview.
Think positive and behave positively. Everyone in the room wants you to succeed. This is the reason you are sitting with them. No one is there to make you feel bad or inferior.

Conclusion

Giving a UX interview requires preparation, whether you are an experienced person or a fresh graduate. So, take time, prepare notes, study well, behave confidently, and perform excellently.

Make sure to follow up after the interview as this will show your interest in the job and thus leave a positive impact. Whether you are successful or not, make sure that you always get feedback from your recruiters as this can be a good learning experience useful in another future interview.

A quick summary of the article can be seen in the video below.

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