Best interview questions for Product Designers

Product Designer Interview Questions

The best candidates for a product designer will be outstanding communicators, with a lot of creativity, problem solving skills and be willing to take risks.

They should:

Be focused on the customer and want to constantly question the product they are working on to make it the best version of itself.
It’s important that their skill set reaches from concept to launch.

Interviewing a Product Designer

Are you on the lookout for a new Product Designer? Then it will soon be time to get to know the candidates a little better in an interview. With our Product Designer interview questions, your interview is prepared quickly and easily.

Please note: Our interview questions are suggestions for the earlier stages of the application process and for candidates with average work experience. They are therefore a little more general.

How to open the job interview

Interviews naturally breed nerves, so the first part of your interview should aim to make the candidate feel comfortable speaking with you, you’ll get much more information out of them and a better sense of the person they are if they feel like they can trust the environment they are in.

To do this you can ask some fun and interesting questions linked to the role, they should be open-ended and encourage conversation.

Job Description available

See our Product Designer Job Description here

For the interview

A positive opener to start

What is your favorite product?

What do you love most about being a designer?

Behavioral Questions

What are some of your favourite products in terms of design? What do you like about them and what would you change about them?
You’ll get a good sense of style and personality from this question.
What are some of the biggest problems you face as a product designer?
A good sense of how they react under pressure is important and getting over failures is a good trait to have.
What is your favourite piece in your portfolio? Why?
Gives you a good indication of their process and thought patterns.

Soft Skills

How do you keep up to date with the latest design and product industry trends? How do you implement these?
Should be able to recall some high quality content that they think is valuable, they should also show a desire to experiment.
Can you tell me about a time that you had to simplify a complex problem? How did you explain this to team members or stakeholders that aren’t in the product industry?
Good communication skills are absolutely essential for product designers, working in cross-functional teams will be a huge part of the position.
What has been your biggest product mistake? How did you deal with that?
This will show you how well they work under pressure and how they think critically. They should also display good problem solving skills.

Hard Skills

In your opinion, how should the design process begin?
Product designers should be customer focused so look out for candidates to frame issues in this way.
What do you think should come first - product, or style?
There’s no right or wrong answer here, what you’re looking for should be structure and well thought out processes.
What tools do you use to analyse and evaluate your product designs?
How do you test your methodologies about product usability?
Both these questions will give you a good sense of how they work, and what their processes are. Experienced candidates will have a pattern to work with.

Operational / Situational Questions

Can you tell me about a time that your suggestion improved the design process?
Can you tell me about a time that someone disagreed with your processes or suggestions? How did you deal with this?
Both these questions will let you know how they work productively with processes, analytical thinking and a problem solving attitude.