Interviewing for UI/UX roles in 2025 means navigating a process that’s grown well beyond clean visuals and tidy case studies. Today, companies want designers who can connect the dots between product, process, and business outcomes. The ability to tell a compelling design story is just as important as your layout grid.
And the value of good design is no longer just a design team talking point. According to a this McKinsey report, companies that excel in design capability outperform their competitors in both revenue growth and shareholder return. As McKinsey partner Benedict Sheppard puts it: “Improving your design capability can improve your company’s financial performance.”
This guide is built to help you prep for every step of the UI/UX interview process. From structuring your portfolio to handling live challenges and strategic questions, we’ll walk through what interviewers are actually looking for and how to stand out for the right reasons.
Most design interviews include a few predictable stages:
Design interviews vary by company type:
Common misconceptions:
Seniority also shapes expectations:
Your portfolio isn’t just a gallery. It’s your best opportunity to show how you think.
Structure each case study like this:
Balance is key. A mix of mobile, web, or platform work is great, but don’t stretch too thin. Two detailed projects will always beat five surface-level ones.
Avoid:
Great platforms include Notion, Webflow, and Semplice. For fresh ideas, UXfolio’s 2024 portfolio examples is a solid source of inspiration. It features real designer portfolios and breaks down what makes them work.
Design challenges aren’t just about finding the “right” solution. They’re about how you approach the problem.
Hiring managers typically evaluate:
Example project for context:
Let’s say you worked at a B2B SaaS company, and your team was responsible for redesigning the dashboard experience for enterprise customers. The goal was to improve how users tracked real-time analytics and configured alerts for their accounts.
Walk me through your design process.
“I started with stakeholder interviews and customer feedback from the support team to understand pain points. I mapped the user journey of a customer setting up and monitoring alerts, then created wireframes for a simplified layout. I tested this with four existing customers, made adjustments based on feedback, and moved into high-fidelity prototyping.”
💡 Tip: Focus on how you adapt your process to the project. Avoid buzzwords without context.
How do you prioritise features when everything feels important?
“We ran a feature prioritisation workshop using MoSCoW and looked at which features were blockers for core use cases. For example, the ability to duplicate alert settings across accounts was prioritised because of how often customers repeated this manually.”
💡 Tip: Show how you balance user needs and effort vs. impact. Avoid vague statements like “we just picked the easiest one.”
Tell us about a time your design was challenged. How did you respond?
“A PM pushed back on our approach to displaying alerts in real time due to performance concerns. I partnered with engineering to create a more efficient polling model and proposed a simplified UI state. It led to a better user experience with no performance trade-offs.”
💡 Tip: Stay calm, curious, and collaborative. Avoid getting defensive or dismissing the feedback.
How do you test your designs with users?
“For this dashboard redesign, we used unmoderated tests through Maze on key tasks like setting up a new alert. We then followed up with 1:1 calls to dig deeper. We learned users were confused by label terminology, which we refined based on their language.”
💡 Tip: Be specific about what you tested, how you gathered feedback, and what changed. Avoid generic phrases like “we asked for feedback.”
What’s your approach to accessibility?
“We applied contrast testing, ensured keyboard navigation worked across components, and verified ARIA labels in collaboration with developers. We also made error states more descriptive for screen readers.”
💡 Tip: Accessibility isn’t just about contrast ratios. Show you understand real implementation. Avoid only listing tools.
How do you balance business goals and user needs?
“Our business goal was to reduce churn in enterprise accounts. Users wanted less noisy notifications. We redesigned the alert thresholds so users could customise them and tied notification clarity to customer retention metrics.”
💡 Tip: Be honest about the trade-offs. Frame tension between goals as design opportunities, not blockers.
Can you explain a recent design decision that had measurable impact?
“We moved the ‘create alert’ button to a persistent top bar. This one change increased alert setup by 32%, based on Mixpanel tracking, and significantly reduced customer support tickets around discoverability.”
💡 Tip: Numbers matter. If you don’t have them, talk about how you would measure success. Avoid “it just felt better.”
Describe how you work with developers or PMs.
“We had weekly standups and used Figma's Dev Mode to spec out interaction states. I also built a shared checklist with our PM to flag edge cases before handoff.”
💡 Tip: Talk about communication and tooling. Avoid saying “I just hand over designs and wait.”
What’s a product you admire and why?
“I admire Linear. It’s fast, opinionated, and beautifully designed without being bloated. Their keyboard navigation and focus modes feel built for power users.”
💡 Tip: Pick something relevant to the company or role. Show insight, not just admiration.
How do you keep up with current design trends or tools?
“I stay active in the Figma community, follow UX Collective and NNGroup, and experiment with new tools like Locofy and Penpot in side projects.”
💡 Tip: Keep it specific. Reading one blog post a year doesn’t count. Avoid overhyping trendy tools you’ve never actually used.
Not every role will test technical skills, but many expect familiarity with tools, workflows, and collaboration best practices. While you won’t be asked to code, you'll likely be expected to create developer-friendly designs, prototype interactive flows, and understand how your decisions affect implementation.
Figma basics
Know how to use components, variants, auto layout, and design tokens. Be prepared to explain how your file is organised and how you keep things scalable.
✅ Example: You created a shared component library that helped reduce inconsistencies across squads and sped up onboarding for new designers.
Interaction design and transitions
You may be asked to create or walk through motion within a prototype like hover states, loading transitions, or swipe gestures.
💡 Tip: Use Figma’s smart animate and prototype tools to clearly demonstrate your intent.
Developer handoff etiquette
Interviewers might ask how you prepare your files for handoff. Talk about naming conventions, commenting on interactions, documenting edge cases, and using tools like Figma’s Dev Mode, Zeplin, or Zeroheight.
Mobile-specific patterns
Understand how mobile UX differs from desktop, especially for navigation, gesture interactions, and responsive design.
✅ Example: If you’ve worked on both iOS and Android, mention how you accounted for platform guidelines like Material Design vs. Human Interface Guidelines.
Light frontend understanding
You don’t need to write code, but knowing how your designs map to HTML/CSS and responsive frameworks is a huge plus.
💡 Tip: Reference times you collaborated with developers to resolve spacing or layout issues and how you validated feasibility using browser DevTools.
💡 Tip: In technical rounds, interviewers aren’t just testing your tool skills. They want to understand how you think about design quality, structure, and collaboration. The best candidates show they care about the handoff just as much as the handover.
Design isn’t just about screens, it’s about solving the right problems.
Strategic thinking is what separates executional designers from senior-level and leadership-ready candidates. Hiring managers want to know you can zoom out, connect your work to product goals, and make thoughtful trade-offs that serve both users and the business.
Bring examples where you contributed to product strategy, roadmap planning, or long-term design vision. These don’t have to be massive company-wide initiatives. A well-argued design trade-off on a feature can still show you think like a strategist.
Frame your answer around a clear problem
Start with a business or user need, and show how you explored the context before jumping to solutions.
Quantify whenever possible
Even directional metrics help. “We reduced drop-off by 14%” > “Users liked it more.”
Show decision-making, not just execution
Describe why you chose one path over another. What trade-offs did you weigh?
Highlight collaboration
Talk about how you worked with product, engineering, or data to align decisions with broader goals.
Avoid fluff or buzzwords
Skip the “synergising stakeholder KPIs” jargon. Be concrete and honest about what you did, what worked, and what didn’t.
Don’t undersell “small” decisions
Strategic thinking doesn’t require owning an entire roadmap. A decision that improved feature adoption or unlocked a new user segment still counts.
This is where your communication, collaboration, and self-awareness really matter.
Most behavioural rounds focus less on what you did and more on how you work with others. Do you stay open to feedback? Can you explain your design decisions clearly and without defensiveness? Are you reflective about past challenges and able to grow from them?
This stage helps hiring teams understand what it’s like to have you on their team. Your design skills still count, but emotional intelligence plays a big part here too.
Use the STAR method to structure your answers:
Situation → Task → Action → Result
Focus on clarity, honesty, and reflection, especially when things didn’t go smoothly. Here's a concrete example:
Tell me about a time you disagreed with a stakeholder
Example STAR response
Situation:
While working as a UI/UX designer at a mid-sized fintech startup, I was redesigning the dashboard interface. A key stakeholder, the head of sales, wanted to prioritize adding multiple promotional banners, believing they would drive engagement.
Task:
My job was to balance stakeholder requests with user experience best practices and ensure the dashboard remained clean and easy to navigate for users.
Action:
I scheduled a meeting with the sales lead to understand their goals better. Then I shared user feedback and analytics showing that cluttered dashboards led to higher bounce rates. I proposed an alternative: a single, rotating banner with clear calls to action, combined with an A/B test to validate performance. I collaborated with the sales team to define success metrics and timelines.
Result:
The revised design reduced visual clutter, improved user engagement by 12%, and maintained stakeholder satisfaction. The sales team appreciated being involved in the solution, and we later adopted this collaborative approach for other features.
Don’t sugarcoat everything
Interviewers know real projects have tension. Talking through a disagreement that ended constructively shows maturity
Show how you listen
Share how you incorporated feedback or adapted based on input from users or teammates
Resilience matters more than perfection
If a project didn’t land the first time, talk about what you learned and how you adjusted
Be specific about collaboration
Name roles, what worked well, and where things needed alignment
Highlight empathy
Share how you designed for accessibility, advocated for user needs, or supported your team
Prep your stories, but don’t memorise them
Rehearse key examples so they feel familiar, not scripted
If you’re preparing for a UI/UX interview in 2025, this guide gives you the foundation you need to walk in with confidence. We’ve covered every step of the process: from understanding how different companies structure their interviews to building a portfolio that actually gets attention.
You’ve learned how to approach take-home tasks, live challenges, and behavioural questions with structure and clarity. We’ve broken down how to answer common UI/UX interview questions, show strategic thinking, and prepare for technical assessments like prototyping and developer handoff.
Whether you’re applying to your first design role or stepping into a senior position, this guide gives you the tools to not just answer questions, but to tell stories, show impact, and demonstrate how you solve real problems.
Design interviews aren’t just about your portfolio. They’re about how you think, how you work with others, and how you communicate your decisions under pressure. The more you prep, the more naturally your skills, experience, and mindset will shine through.
1. How important is coding knowledge for UI/UX designer interviews?
It depends. For some roles, basic HTML/CSS helps you work better with devs. For others, it’s not expected at all.
2. Should my portfolio focus on visual design or user experience process?
Both. You should show how you think, how you execute, and how your work drives outcomes.
3. How do I prepare for whiteboard design challenges?
Practice explaining your thought process aloud. Use frameworks like Double Diamond or Crazy 8s to stay focused.
4. What should I do if I don't have professional UX projects for my portfolio?
Use personal projects, redesigns, or volunteer work. Just make sure you show your process, not just your output.
5. How detailed should my case studies be in an interview?
Detailed enough to explain the problem, what you did, and what changed. Time-box it to 5–10 minutes per case.
6. What's the best way to demonstrate my design thinking process?
Walk through a real project step by step. Use visuals and highlight decisions, trade-offs, and learnings.
7. How do I address accessibility questions in a design interview?
Talk about how you build for inclusivity, follow WCAG standards, and test with real users where possible.
8. Should I specialise in one industry or show diverse design work?
Depends on your goals. Specialisation shows depth. Variety shows flexibility. You can lead with one, and keep the other in your back pocket.