Our carefully curated list of Product Designer interview questions provides valuable guidance for recruiters and hiring managers seeking to identify top talent in this critical role. From design thinking and user research to prototyping and testing, our comprehensive collection assesses candidates’ abilities to create engaging, user-centric product experiences that meet business goals and drive success.
Considerations for Hiring a Product Designer
Product design is not just a stage in the business process. In fact, it is the language of your business. The design of a product speaks volumes about it. Understanding the power of design, more and more organizations are embracing the requirement of impressive product design. This is where the role of Product Designer emerges as a crucial one for companies whose objectives revolve around user experience.
Hiring a perfect Product Designer can be quite a tough task. It’s hard to know which skills to value and which to discard. Also, you can’t judge candidates’ proficiency simply by looking at their portfolios. To help you, we have assembled top interview questions which you must ask the candidates applying for the post of Product Designer in your organization.
Product Designers are often UI/UX designers who add their soft skills in business strategy, technical prowess, and marketing insights to offer a holistic view of product design. They are not just talented designers and innovative thinkers, but also excellent team players and communicators.
Qualifications to look for
- Minimum qualification: Foundation degree or HND in Industrial Design, Engineering, or Architecture
- A Master’s degree will be an advantage in certain sectors, especially when working with international customers and competitors.
- Courses with major design subjects such as 3D design, spatial design, and industrial design should also be considered relevant.
Skills to look for
- Attention to details
- Well-developed technical and creative skills
- IT skills, including CAD, drawings, 3D modeling
- Communication and interpersonal skills
- Commercial awareness
- Ability to work in a team
- Ability to organize a project through several stages
Portfolio Specific Questions
Start with reviewing the portfolio of the candidates. Serious and true designers always carry a self-created portfolio of their previous works. It will give you enough insight into their unique skill set, experience, and design approaches.
Ask the following questions to gauge the credibility of a portfolio:
- Can you tell us something about your studies? What are the most interesting aspects of your course for you?
- How do you make the user understand your work? What research methods do you employ while starting a new project?
- What is “only you” work in your portfolio?
- Is there any project that didn’t go as planned? If yes, what are the reasons that led to it? What was your strategy to solve the problems that arose? Would you like to talk to us about any side project?
- What are you currently working on? What are the best pieces in your portfolio? Explain the design process and the problems that you were trying to solve.
Role-specific Questions
- What development environment do you prefer?
- If you start a new project right now, which solution will you opt for adding icons to the interface?
- Explain progressive enhancement and graceful degradation.
- What are existing CSS/SASS frameworks that are used by you either locally, or in production? Do you know about BEM and SMACSS?
- What according to you will be the next big trend in product design?
- How do you keep yourself updated with the latest design trends?
- What is your source of inspiration?
- Do you read any reference books or attend exhibitions or communities?
- What is your opinion is the most important aspect of your job?
