Setting the context by understanding problems in-depth

The first step to any design solution is to understand the problem. Just like in your portfolio project summary slide you want to summarize the context:

What is the prompt, what are you trying to solve for?

What are the business objectives?

What are the user objectives?

What are the constraints?

How do we measure success?

At this stage, you may treat your interviews as stakeholders. They can be your business or research counterparts. Ask questions to understand the problem fully from multiple perspectives and document this on the whiteboard.

When you wrap up: summarize key context points, tell your interviewers what you’re going to do next and ask if there’s anything unaddressed that they’d like to see. This ensures everyone is in sync and no lingering questions (which can derail you later) remain.

Narrowing problem scope

At this point you might have more problems than you have time to solve for. That’s a good sign. Usually in defining the context you’ll discover many opportunities to go after.

This step is an opportunity (no pun intended) to demonstrate your product thinking by narrowing options to the critical few leading to outsize impact. Show how you think about impact and the criteria you use to evaluate a problem space.

Here are some basic frameworks:

Impact vs cost — the impact to the business and the user will be high while the time spent developing this feature will be low

— the impact to the business and the user will be high while the time spent developing this feature will be low Forward momentum — building this feature will pay down tech debt and position the team to learn and iterate faster

— building this feature will pay down tech debt and position the team to learn and iterate faster Ideal experience — if there are no explicit constraints, what would the ideal solution look like?

Alternatively you might also be asked to not think about constraints at all (e.g. unlimited engineering resources) and to create the best solution. In that case your constraints are driven by user needs which you should note down.

Meaningful focus > diffused diligence

Finally, beware of the curse of knowledge. Take the time to remind yourself of the main goal and pick one big problem that you can solve well in the allotted time. It’s tempting to fight on multiple fronts but you won’t have the time for that here. Choose meaningful focus over diffused diligence.

Unbridled solution generation

Now for the fun part — exploring many varying solutions by lifting constraints. Suspend disbelief and generate lots of solutions. The beauty of whiteboards is that you can draw lots of ideas and then either erase or narrow down the list to a promising few.

If you get stumped, don’t be afraid to start sketching. The very act of sketching on the whiteboard and describing as you’re drawing can yield additional ideas. Go for quantity over quality at this phase.

Choosing a solution to go after

Once you considered the world of possible solutions, you can start narrowing your scope down to a few promising options. Now’s the time to go deep.

Again it’s important to refer back to your original objectives. Did you miss anything? Look back to ensure the solution you’re about to expand on hits on the key pain points you’ve learned during the problem phase.

As you’re sketching out your solution think in journeys and flows. How would someone interact with the service or the product? How would the interaction flow from one screen to the next? At this point you’re usually not expected to think through the edge cases as you’re sketching out a happy path.

Manage your time by taking an active role in facilitating the session. Photo by Lukas Blazek

Finishing on a high note

Even with great time management, there’s usually more problems and more solutions to explore so it’s very likely that you’ll run out of time. If you have been tracking time yourself, pause 10 minutes before the end of the interview to take a pulse check — what do the interviewers want to see next? Do they want you to proceed further or is this a good place to stop?

If you are at a stopping point or if you’ve actually “completed” the whiteboard challenge with time to spare (congrats, a rare feat!) take a moment to summarize and mention how you might have approached the process differently. Balance this self reflection with time for additional questions that you might want to ask your interviewers.

As an interviewer I’m also reflecting on our time. Could we work well together? How well did you respond to feedback? Was your approach different from mine? Can you help me overcome my gaps? Have I learned something new here?

3. Common mistakes to avoid

When interviewing designers I see many common mistakes made over again. It doesn’t matter if the designer is fresh out of school, mid-level or senior.

Here are a couple of issues that stand out and can be easily fixed:

Overkilling it with context

As part of the product design interview it is important that you establish a strong foundation that’s predicated on context and the problem. But you can also go overboard with this and run out of time to not get to any solutions or take a very superficial pass at the solution phase.

This is a problem of time management. Context setting and problem definition should take less than half of the interview time. For example in a 1 hour session with 15 minutes for questions, roughly 10 minutes should be used for understanding context, about 10 minutes for problem exploration and definition and most of your time (about 25+ minutes) on sketching and iterating through solutions.

Jumping into solutions too soon

The flip side of too much context is doing too little. Jumping into solutions without considering the broader context leads you to dance between possible solutions and possible problems. It leads you to a dangerous path where you spend a lot of time on a solution and invent the problem for it. Make sure your foundation (context, problem) is solid first.

Overfitting an existing pattern

Some designers have tried to use patterns from one app (e.g. Facebook) as an answer to the whiteboard prompt. While this approach is generally sound and you should use analogous apps for inspiration beware of trying to fit a pattern that doesn’t make sense in the context you’re solving for. Think through the problem from first principles — what must hold true for this pattern to work? If the context isn’t right consider a different pattern.

Thinking components not journeys

Instead of thinking about the experience as it’s presented to users some designers think about components and patterns instead of journeys. While thinking about hand off is important — if you don’t have the overall journey right, it doesn’t matter if your UI can be componentized as you’ll still be solving the wrong problem. Get the journey right first.

Not vocalizing your thoughts

The more clearly you can verbally communicate what you’re doing, the easier it is for the interviewer to understand your process and provide feedback.

Strike the optimal balance of talking, sketching, and facilitation

This can be hard to do at first, which is why I recommend practicing (more on that below).

Not taking advantage of interviewer feedback

On the flip side, you don’t want to speak so much that it leaves little breathing room for your interviewers with no opportunity for them to interject. Interviewers are your best source for answers and they’re right there! Don’t miss out. Lead them through your process but also be sure to pause, clarify, and engage them with questions. Your job is to strike the optimal balance of talking, sketching, and facilitation.

Engage your interviewers. Photo by Christina Morillo

Not addressing interviewer feedback

Generally whiteboard prompts start open ended with a wide field of opportunities. As you work through the prompt, I’d like to see how you react to my feedback. Are you receptive? Do you “yes and” or do you try to brush it off or worse skip it? Responding to feedback effectively is just as crucial as having a solid process with good solutions.

Blaming the whiteboard interview

No interview is a perfect assessment of your skills. As interviewers we know this and take it into account by assessing candidates holistically. However getting defensive and blaming the whiteboard challenge when you’re still interviewing isn’t an effective use of your time. Ask questions and build rapport instead.

4. Solid vs amazing whiteboard execution

Once you mastered the basics it’s time to think about what can take your whiteboard execution from good to great.

Solid execution

A good whiteboard execution hits on many of the things we already have talked about — proper framing, generating solutions, and collaboration.

You’ve taken the time to understand the problem by looking at it from multiple lenses from the business, user, and engineering side. You’ve defined a specific audience or persona to design this solution for. You’ve pushed back on the initial statement by reframing it, perhaps making it broader, specific, or by discovering a new problem altogether. The interviews agreed this was the way to go.

Based on your problem you’ve generated many different high quality ideas quickly. You didn’t dodge any questions, you answered all of them and clarified with the interviewers to make sure their questions were addressed. In the end you made good on time, enough to give you a moment to step back and reflect on what you could have done better.

Amazing execution

Amazing execution builds on top of solid execution. Usually I’ve seen this come from design leads who have a rich interaction design vocabulary developed over years of solving complex design problems in different industries.

In this case you not only solved the initial problem quickly but you also exhausted your interviewer prompts leaving them with nearly no questions. You’ve impressed them with your level of thinking and creativity by coming up with unconventional solutions that not only solved the problem but also anticipated other issues that you’ve mitigated for.

Although you’ve stated the approach that you would follow to your interviewers upfront, you weren’t rigid. You struck the right balance of moving faster through certain sections, skipping some but also deliberately taking longer in other parts to make sure no one got lost. In the end you finished the whiteboard exercise with plenty of time to spare for questions leaving your interviewers impressed by your execution.

5. Practicing better with whiteboard prompts

The best way to get better at whiteboards is through practice. Baseline yourself initially to gauge your progress. If you haven’t done any white boarding, grab a marker and start sketching. Don’t worry about perfection, just get familiar initially.

Sample prompts

The prompts vary depending on the company and the space they’re in. Some exercises range from pragmatic to design fiction. Interviewer guides usually include the prompt, variations and questions interviewers should ask plus grading criteria. As an interviewee you’ll be presented with the prompt upfront and then asked to walk the interviewer through the process.

Here are a couple of starter prompts to experiment with:

Growing gardens, growing business

Prompt: Growing Gardens targets suburban families who are interested in gardening but have little to no formal knowledge. The business primarily sells plants but is also extending into additional products (pots, fertilizer) and services (landscaping). Create an application to help people learn more about gardening and getting them to

Assessment: as an interviewer I’d like to see how you think about the opportunity space, which platform you decide to use for this prompt, and how you balance user and business needs.

Designing an interior for an autonomous vehicle

Prompt: An automaker, Edison, has been experimenting with a completely new car design for their model Z vehicle. This car is fully autonomous and doesn’t require any human interaction. As a designer you’ve been asked to reimagine the car interior. What should the interior look like?

Assessment: I’d like to see how you think about blue sky projects, how you define a problem space and generate novel ideas accordingly.

Time traveling tourism

Prompt: Scientists recently discovered a way to time travel. People can now go back and forward in time without any consequence to the timelines, no need to worry about the butterfly effect. As one of the first designers of the time machine you’ve been tasked with creating an experience for time traveling tourists. What experience would you create?

Assessment: The open nature of this prompt gives you many possibilities to go after. You’ll need to think through constraints, analogous experiences, and how to scope the problem meaningfully.

Baselining your whiteboarding skills

Now that you have some prompts and a core criteria, you can start practicing by yourself. Imagine you’re running a think aloud usability study but instead of moderating, the participant is you. Record your first time through and be sure to time yourself. Playback the recording and look for patterns where you pause, don’t speak, or speak too much.

Take a photo of the whiteboard and do a self evaluation based on the criteria we mentioned in the beginning:

What did you wish you could spend more time on?

What did you miss?

What’s not clear?

Did you go over or under your time limit?

Use the combination of your recording (audio and video) and the photo of the whiteboard to grade yourself. Note areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. It’s important to isolate areas of weakness and focus on closing those gaps. That said, don’t forget to highlight your strengths during the actual whiteboard interview.

Practicing with a mock interviewer

After your baseline, and a few more practice runs (which you can easily do in a week), it’s time to practice with a fellow design friend (or two). Take turns, let them be your interviewer and have them probe you on the design details. Then evaluate them. The nature of switching roles will help you see the problem from a different perspective.

What’s next?

In the next article, in the mastering product design series, we’ll dive into the next interview type—the app critique. You’ll learn about comprehensive frameworks that can help you navigate the app and make you stand out as a candidate who thinks from first principles.