

Ask HN: How to interview a full-time designer? - mickeyben

We're planning on hiring a designer with some html/css skills and a sense of usability. I have no clue on how to conduct the interview.<p>I was wondering if i could/should ask him to mock or design something (the same way I ask a developer to resolve a problem).<p>Do you have any advices or resources ?
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cesart
Yes, do ask them to design something if that helps you, but make sure you're
having him/her design something on the fly that's _related_ to your product,
not a real problem you're actually having currently. When interviewing for my
summer position at Milk, a part of the application process was re-designing a
product that was similar to what Oink could eventually be. The exercise is
supposed to be theoretical anyway, so this just furthers the amount of time a
designer has to think about the problems and to just get to the solution. This
could also be a take-home assignment where they allocate Xhrs to the problem.

More than anything, recognize that the purpose of this exercise isn't to see
the designer's abilities (you should be able to see this in their portfolio of
previous work), but more about how they approach problems and how they think
critically. Understand that no one can ever really outline their design
process specifically, but should be able to speak to about the way they solved
problems in the past (again, see portfolio) and how they came to solutions.

Talk to them about what they view as "good design" and why they think it. A
good designer is ultimately a good communicator and should be able to talk you
through why they think it's "good" (in their opinion).

Something that might provide insight is this Behance interview of Ben Barry,
Facebook's communication designer:
[http://the99percent.com/articles/7118/Facebooks-Ben-Barry-
On...](http://the99percent.com/articles/7118/Facebooks-Ben-Barry-On-How-To-
Hack-Your-Job). It's not completely specific, but it will give you insight
into the way most designers (in Silicon Valley, at least) think about their
jobs and their work.

Hope that helps!

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poppysan
I would stray away from an on-the-spot design task. Design and UI is a very
research and strategy oriented task. The result of an hour or day long test
may not be an accurate representation of what the designer is capable of.

If you like his work, commission him for a freelance project as the test. Give
it milestones and specs like any other project. Based on the results -
concerning time management, style, ability to digest the specs, etc, you can
have a better idea of the applicant.

~~~
mickeyben
Great feedback ! We'll seriously consider hiring him as a freelance first.

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nsfmc
this sorta thing is pretty religious, so i'm just going to note the following
points:

1\. i've known traditional print designers that have jumped headfirst into
html/css/js/etc and many of them have left behind artifacts that still live on
the web: blogs they've themed, mini web apps, random code snippets, their own
web portfolios, etc. investigate these and see if they mesh with what's on
their portfolio or what they claim about themselves.

2\. formally trained designers have had lots of experience with critique (and,
by proxy, one hopes, critical thinking). Lots of crit is bs, but i tend to
favor designers who are _thoughtful_ and can back up their work critically or
be honest about their motives.

3\. you can assign "design tasks" if you want, but you need to be clear about
what you're measuring and how your questions elicits that. If you're having
trouble picking a design task, try a classic system design task (let's design
usb from scratch...) and then see what _that_ measures and if you can find
some analog in your own problem domain.

4\. the process is not foolproof and you will likely turn away very qualified
people regardless of your metrics.

5\. be clear about what you're looking for: do you want somebody that makes
stuff look totally sweet, or somebody that solves problems well, or a person
that codes monday, designs tuesday, and then specs out a new feature on
wednesday... be realistic about your expectations.

6\. people interpret the term 'designer' in a bunch of ways. lots of people
take this to mean: "i can think about user flow, use visio to make wireframes,
etc" and others take this to mean "how can this look awesome." others take
this to mean "i thought through where a menu tree went in an enterprise java
application" and others take this to mean "i make graphics design, do you need
a logo?" and some others are like the wolf from pulp fiction, they just fix
underspecified problems and are good brainstormers. none of these are better
than others, they all are useful for different reasons and end-results.

but what i'm saying is "you want a designer? why?" be honest about what
_specifically_ motivates your desire to hire a full time designer. this will
make any interview you run easier to evaluate as a success or failure.

------
QJ
One thing I do is that I show the person our current UI, and ask them what
changes would they propose to make things better and the reasons behind their
decisions. This really helps to see how the person approaches problems and
what kind of design mentally he/she has.

~~~
caw
While I agree that a live test like this might be a good indicator, I don't
know if the candidate would get a vibe that you're trying to get free work (A
bunch of suggestions to try after you show them the door). Maybe using some
other site, like a competitor or something unrelated.

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proexploit
If you do ask someone to mock something up, make sure it's very small (1-2
hours of time max). There's a fine line between an evaluation and spec work,
the latter of which will drive away a lot of good candidates.

------
ChrisNorstrom
Ask them what they think about the TechCrunch and Kotaku redesigns. If they
actually like them, let them go on for a few more minutes, thank them for
their time, escort them out, and throw their application away.

Those redesigns are everything that's wrong with young designers (me
included). Looks over usability, creative over predictable is the WRONG way to
design. Good design is about usability and usability is about predictability,
not over complicating what isn't broken for the sake making it different, not
hiding elements and loading up info on rollovers just to give the site a
"cold, heartless, minimistic, look at me I'm the next Steve Jobs, look", not
segregating information pointlessly.

If they can't tell you what's wrong with the designs in detail, let them go.

~~~
mickeyben
I agree with the usability issues.

We hired a freelance designer few months ago, all their work was gorgeous but
the usability sucked.

