Design a way to travel through time… Also, your users are blind). As an interviewee, many of the interview challenges I participated in left me feeling uneasy. ... Talk about a design challenge you encountered and how you overcame. Job Story: When users are beginning to research rooms in advance, and they need to secure hotel rooms for a group of people, users want to easily manipulate dates and other filters, so they can search and discover best prices before making a decision to book. What are the business objectives in the scenario? Design Challenge, Challenging Times: An Interview and Conversation with Erin Sweeney and Schools That Can The COVID-19 crisis has upended many annual events and programs; many have been canceled, a few have postponed until the next year. And guess what? “Once I’m ready to book the hotel, I’m already building an itinerary. The Great Interior Design Challenge Interview 26th January 2016 AD / May contain affiliate links. Key themes to touch on: Discuss whether the goal is to stay technical or to become more business aligned i.e. Browse all entries from the Box of Mystery Environment Design Challenge. Description: A whiteboard challenge is a design challenge that is usually done live in front of the interview team. We googled places, found a hotel and booked through their mobile web browser.”. I am about to turn down an opportunity to interview with a company because I am tired of doing these take home design challenges. It’s back! If you know the problem primarily affects a certain type of person, what’s their “user journey” look like and how can a digital product influence that experience? In the final flow, users only need to tap the check-out date in order for search results to load. Job Story: When users need last minute places, users want to open the app and immediately be able to search for rooms available that night nearby (within 20 miles), so they can have a place to crash or get away for the night. 20 Interview Questions for eLearning Developers . The goal is to design a mobile check-in/check-out date picker that helps travelers successfully and efficiently complete their overall hotel booking experience. We want to hear your design hero story. Coming up with a great solution is simply a bonus in the evaluation process of interviewing. A weekly, ad-free newsletter that helps designers stay in the know, be productive, and think more critically about their work. One question area you should absolutely get clarity on is the expected outcome of the challenge itself. Yet so overwhelming. I chose to design for a native iOS app and a third-party hotel app, in which users can search for a variety of hotels in a location. Is the interviewer looking for any behaviors or skills in-particular? What kind of results did it achieve, and how do you define a success? Assume that the process of choosing dates to stay at a hotel is part of a greater “planning travel” experience. In the previous wireframe flow, users needed to tap a “Save” button in order to populate search results. Become familiar with the types of challenges and tests companies use to evaluate digital product designers. What trade-offs are you going to have to consider while working toward a solution? Human-centered design is a practical, repeatable approach to arriving at innovative solutions. It is a long process and need a lot of effort. I can see these challenges for what they really are: an opportunity to more authentically share—and reflect on—my problem solving process. And of course, they tell you to not spend too much time on it… ;). Entry by Sebastian Luca I use the mobile app more to do initial research.”. Next steps would be to test again and see how these concepts fare in the hands of more users. Are you happy with where you ended up or dissatisfied? Should you invest time defining additional ones before diving in? Next iterations would also work through more edge cases. I’d be keen to learn how much value that interaction actually provides users in searching for and discovering hotels… If it indeed would be worth the development cost. Some challenges would be super abstract (e.g. However after critiquing this interaction, I felt that it was an unnecessary barrier between user actions and system feedback. Acing the Whiteboard Challenge Design fast. I’d love to hear your thoughts on frameworks you’ve found successful in your design challenges. How do you prioritize what’s in front of you? Asking questions is extremely encouraged because it will allow you to come up with thoughtful, well formulated answers without causing misunderstanding or incompetency for something you might know but cannot articulate. Just like any design project, don’t start designing until you … I just want to get it done fast.”. Assume that the hotel app makes money from bookings made from their app. I’ve experienced design challenges both as an interviewee and an interviewer. How did … With a few minutes to spare, take time to reflect out loud. How might you begin finding answers to the things you don’t? Don’t know what everyone think about design challenges but I find it hard to find time to do it when you have a job. Remember to always tie what you’re doing back to the expected outcome of the challenge and the problem being solved. Draw if you have to. For a more detailed walkthrough, here’s what your DIGS-influenced design portfolio response should sound like: Dramatize the situation. Out loud. However, there are still many that are adapting to the times and moving their events to virtual venues. I’d remind myself of the original goal: The goal is to design a mobile check-in/check-out date picker that helps travelers successfully and efficiently complete their overall hotel booking experience. Time: 20 minutes – 1 hour. Start by helping us appreciate your design challenge. The user accesses the calendar by tapping down the date range bar. Job Story: When users have a last minute work trip and they have already booked their flight, they want to open the hotel app and enter their dates as quickly as possible, so they can focus on finding a hotel based on other preferences like quality and reviews. Others would be an actual problem in the company (e.g. Should you plan to solve the problem in some way, or simply work through it Is the interviewer acting in a collaborative role or merely as an observer? Design challenges are a highly effective way to get signal on skills that aren’t always evident in a portfolio: problem solving strategy, product thinking and scope analysis, communication, collaboration, prioritization, and so on. A whiteboard challenge is usually included in the last round of the hiring process for UX Designer roles, which is an onsite interview. They need convenience and a way to book immediately. Tell us about yourself. Can you describe it to me?” UX designers tend to have clean, … The challenge was hosted by former winner and host, Airship Syndicate’s Grace Liu. I realized that the goal is to be thorough enough in your design process, while being efficient with your time. If possible: write down the agreed upon outcome in big letters so you can be reminded of it throughout the exercise. You want to develop as clear an understanding as possible about what the problem is you’re attempting to solve, why it’s a problem, and what you might be able to do to resolve it. UX Design Interview Questions Any job interview is a test of both your technical knowledge as well as your non-technical skills (also known as soft skills). I quickly iterated based on both user feedback and design critiques with Vlad and other designers. Prepare for your next job interview. Initial ideas began to form based on these needs: Initially, I created two wireframe flows based on two different calendar concepts: scrolling vs. paging. In addition to the anxiety these types of challenges would cause I struggled to understand the value of attempting to hack away at an impossible task—design an elevator for a building with an infinite number of floors—or something mundane and completely unrelated to what I’d actually be doing on the job—come up with a really interesting car stereo design. When you first begin working on a design challenge you’ll want to consider everything you can be fairly certain about and everything you don’t know but might be able to find an answer to during the challenge. How does technology play a role in the problem you’re exploring, and what facets of digital tools can help create a solution to the problem? In front of an audience. On the job: you’d have more time to invest in understanding the problem and potential solutions, you’d have many expert partners and resources to help you along the way. The design challenge is a highly condensed format of the day-to-day work you might do as a product designer, so nobody expects you to come up with an ideal solution or to demonstrate a perfect process from understanding to building. In order to select a different check-in date, the user taps on a future date. It also made these projects more fun for me, more strategic, and ultimately helped me impress more hiring managers. Originally posted on tannerchristensen.com. When in doubt: ask if you’re providing enough detail or if you need to be more transparent. If you have any questions about the challenge, ask them before doing anything else. … How do you solve design problems? “I’m most proud of this print and digital coupon I designed for a retail company experiencing low redemption rates. In this interview, the artists who created the winning entries, Tae Un Ryu , Jenny Brozek , and Alex Gill share how they did it, their advice for future challengers, and more. There's three case interviews: a product case (which was first), a business analytical (mathematical) case, and a design challenge. If you’re drawing something on the board: explain why. At this point, I’ve approved the work trip, booked the flight. They rely on a mobile app for the ease and on-the-go spontaneous use. Ah, the I came across three types of travelers: The Power Booker, The Researcher and The Spontaneous Traveler. “I’ll use a mobile hotel app for initial research and I’ll save or favorite hotels. 06 / 23 / 2017. They plan in advance, but dates are more flexible with sensitivity to price. Attempting to solve a problem in an hour, with unknown constraints, no preparation, and an often very vague objective? Who hasn't experienced the sweaty-palm inducing interview technique that forces a candidate to brainstorm a design solution to an impossible puzzle, in front of a crowd of engineers and product managers? What tools or resources might you leverge in building out solutions? If you have... 2. In this exercise, I chose to design for existing behaviors. Eventually you’ll land on a place where a reasonable solution will need to be decided on or time will be out. Before you do anything you’ll need to get alignment and agreement on the task. ... Talk about one of your more successful design projects. With an abundance of choices and prices that fluctuate every minute, travelers need a way to discover and book hotels efficiently, effectively and within their constraints. Where do you get stuck and how do you keep momentum if you do? They filter for quality and amenities — choosing dates is just a step to get out of the way. This is a very important question to ask during the interview as if you are not willing to provide the necessary equipment and hardware and the graphic designer does not really have all that is required to do the job in a proper manner then there is no point going ahead from the interview … How to approach a design challenge 1. Designers will expect you to clarify and ask questions as the information they give you might not be enough to successfully execute the design challenge. In order to access the calendar, the user taps on the date range bar from the Search Results screen. WDC is good for both parties, because during the challenge the company gets an idea how you think as a designer, and also you get a feel how working with the team might be like if you get the job. On mobile, they engage with filters for initial browsing, before moving to finally book on the computer once everything is confirmed. Selection colors are differentiated, so the user can view the length of their trip and recognize check-in vs. check-out dates. Where might new solutions fail and where will they succeed? When you first begin working on a design challenge you’ll want to consider everything... 3. If there are no additional questions about the challenge itself, you’re ready to start. The user is unable to select a date that has passed. What’s Your Favorite Project You’ve Ever Worked on? Align on the task at-hand. During the ideation stage it’s good to again bring in the interviewer, if they are playing a collaborative role and not merely there to observe. I came up with a list of general requirements for a date picker and started to work through a user flow of booking a hotel. Interview with Tomoko Sakamoto, Japanese architect in charge of carrying out the Manual Thinking workshop for the winners of the Spanish edition of the Roca One Day Design Challenge 2016. Do you shy away from an ambiguous or daunting task or are you the type to dive right in? Your approach for tackling design challenges is going to be mostly unique to you, however there are universal steps to solving problems which you’ll probably be familiar with. Dates are indicated using a lighter gray to show they are inactive. Think... My Approach. I also took a quick look at some of the apps that users had mentioned: A quick review of the competition gave me an inventory of existing mobile patterns, strengths and weaknesses to begin brainstorming designs for these different types of users. Do you doodle when you think or write or openly talk it through? That is the question! I did this project as part of a product design interview (of which, I’m happy to report I got the job!). What surprised you about your approach and what felt normal. Make the activity into a brainstorm and utilize the interviewer for feedback, for coming up with ideas, or for flagging things you might have missed (it’s totally ok to say: “What am I overlooking?” and “Does this feel like a good direction to you?”). In some cases the challenge was about working on a real-life problem the business was already tackling, which felt like a lazy interview scenario at best. Interviewers are looking for specific behaviors during these challenges: A common trait many digital product designers share is our affinity for solving problems; the design challenge part of an interview is a lot like being given a crossword or a photo puzzle to solve as part of the interview process. Hotel apps come in all shapes and sizes. Testing for success and efficiency would be a usability test, which could measure how long it would take for users to book a hotel, how successful they are in choosing a specific date range or accessing the calendar. Write everything asked and answered down. The time is used as an exercise in paying attention to how you think, not whether you can solve an impossible or novel problem. If you bounced around too many ideas unrelated to the primary problem, if you were unable to pursue important questions, if you failed to address a question or concern, what would you do differently if you had to do it all again? In this iteration, the focus was on the details and UI design. Listing assumptions uncovered some questions I needed to learn from users. However, I’m excited to see how our needs may change as we develop new behaviors around planning travel in the future. If the interviewer is playing a collaborative role, ask about what you can be certain of and what you’ll have to assume? How thorough are you when exploring a problem or potential solution? As you progress through a problem it’s vital to communicate your thoughts and rationale. Errors, dead-ends, failures, oh my! The professional who travels solo and frequently for work and books last minute. I used to fear the problem solving part of a product designer interview. Interviewing for a job can be stressful. Practice your product & UX design skills. Alternatively, describe your dream challenge and how you would design a process to help you deal with it. Working on more projects, collaborating with others, reading-up on design and problem solving strategies. In an interview, your potential employer's ultimate goal is to assess if the position is a good fit for you.One way your interviewer might go about this is to figure out which aspects of the job will be the toughest for you to master. Before you do anything you’ll need to get alignment and agreement on the task. The more I book, the less and less flexible things get. What types of questions do you ask at each stage of solving a problem? Half the time you spend on the challenge should be asking questions, writing down assumptions, and aligning on definitions/goals with the other person in the room. If you spend any time reading or discussing design hiring the subject of design challenges will inevitably come up. How to Tackle a Design Interview Challenge A Bit of Background. Do you suggest the most straightforward solution or try and push boundaries? Some examples: I’d be especially curious to see how the “tuck away” swiping gestures works for browsing and how frequently users are actually readjusting dates. I quickly interviewed 3 people I knew who travel frequently and have used apps to plan their travel. Full confession: I used to dread the design exercise portion of the interview process. In either case: you should end the challenge by having asked numerous questions, attempted to answer as many as you possibly can (or theorize what answers might look like), and finally be ready to reflect on the challenge before concluding. | chrysan.j.tung@gmail.com | chrysantung.com, Proactive UX Design: A Big Leap Requiring Baby Steps, How the Design of My New Blog Came to Live, Redesigning the Herbert Hoover High School Music Program’s website, AnyChart 8.8.0 released with New Visualization Features. But eventually, I took parts from both these ideas to satisfy multiple user groups. You can even come up with a bullet list of expectations and a high-level or stages for the challenge: define, understand, brainstorm, iterate and test, reflect. After a reasonable amount of time you’ll want to start converging on ideas. What are the constraints? In my final wireframes, the search results included wider image sizes with the CTA button to view the pricing located right beneath. 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