Essential UX Designer Work Samples: Practical Exercises to Identify Top Design Talent

UX Designers play a critical role in creating products that delight users while meeting business objectives. The best UX Designers combine creativity with analytical thinking, empathy with technical knowledge, and individual talent with collaborative skills. Finding candidates who truly excel across these dimensions requires more than just reviewing portfolios or conducting standard interviews.

Work samples provide a window into how candidates actually approach design challenges, not just what they say they would do. They reveal problem-solving processes, communication styles, and how candidates respond to feedback—all crucial indicators of on-the-job performance. For UX design roles specifically, seeing how candidates balance user needs with business constraints in real-time offers insights that portfolios alone cannot provide.

The exercises below are designed to evaluate different facets of UX design expertise, from research and ideation to collaboration and iteration. By observing candidates work through these activities, hiring teams can make more informed decisions based on demonstrated skills rather than self-reported abilities.

Implementing these work samples will significantly improve your ability to identify designers who not only create beautiful interfaces but also solve the right problems in the right ways. When integrated into a structured interview process, these exercises help ensure you're building a design team capable of creating exceptional user experiences.

Activity #1: User Journey Redesign Challenge

This exercise evaluates a candidate's ability to identify pain points in existing user experiences and develop thoughtful solutions. It tests their problem-solving approach, design thinking process, and ability to balance user needs with business constraints—core skills for any successful UX designer.

Directions for the Company:

• Prepare screenshots of a problematic user journey from your product or a public website (4-6 screens showing a complete task flow).
• Include brief context about the user goals and business objectives for this journey.
• Allow 45-60 minutes for this exercise during the interview.
• Provide the candidate with access to basic design tools (whiteboard, paper and pencil, or digital tools they're comfortable with).
• Have a designer or product manager present to observe the process and ask questions.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the provided user journey and identify 2-3 key pain points or opportunities for improvement.
• Sketch redesigned screens that address these issues, explaining your thought process as you work.
• Focus on communicating your ideas clearly rather than creating polished designs.
• Be prepared to explain the rationale behind your design decisions and how they improve the user experience.
• Consider both user needs and business objectives in your solution.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the candidate presents their solution, provide one piece of positive feedback about their approach or solution.
• Then offer one constructive suggestion that would strengthen their design or address a constraint they may have overlooked.
• Give the candidate 10 minutes to incorporate this feedback and explain how they would modify their solution.

Activity #2: Usability Testing Simulation

This exercise assesses a candidate's ability to plan and conduct user research—a critical skill for creating user-centered designs. It reveals their approach to gathering insights, asking effective questions, and translating findings into actionable design recommendations.

Directions for the Company:

• Select a feature or prototype from your product (or use a public website if needed).
• Assign a company employee to play the role of a user with a specific profile.
• Provide the candidate with basic information about the user persona and the task they need to accomplish.
• Allow 30 minutes for preparation and 30 minutes for the actual testing session.
• Have team members observe the session to evaluate the candidate's approach.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the product feature and user persona information.
• Prepare a brief usability testing plan, including 3-5 tasks for the user to complete.
• Conduct a 20-minute usability testing session with the mock user.
• Practice think-aloud protocol facilitation and ask appropriate follow-up questions.
• After the session, spend 10 minutes summarizing key findings and recommendations.
• Focus on identifying patterns and prioritizing issues rather than listing every problem.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Provide feedback on one strength in the candidate's testing approach (e.g., effective questioning, good rapport building).
• Offer one suggestion for improvement (e.g., avoiding leading questions, digging deeper on certain responses).
• Ask the candidate to explain how they would incorporate this feedback in future testing sessions and what additional questions they might ask based on the feedback.

Activity #3: Design Critique and Analysis

This exercise evaluates a candidate's analytical thinking, design principles knowledge, and ability to provide constructive feedback—essential skills for collaborating effectively with other designers and stakeholders.

Directions for the Company:

• Select 2-3 screens from your product or a competitor's product.
• Choose designs that have both strengths and areas for improvement.
• Provide context about the target users and business goals.
• Allow 30 minutes for the candidate to review and prepare their critique.
• Have at least one designer present during the critique presentation.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Analyze the provided designs considering usability principles, visual hierarchy, and alignment with user/business goals.
• Identify 3 strengths of the current design that should be maintained.
• Identify 3 opportunities for improvement with specific recommendations.
• Prepare to present your analysis in a 15-minute critique session.
• Focus on being constructive and specific rather than general or overly critical.
• Support your points with design principles or best practices when possible.

Feedback Mechanism:

• After the critique, highlight one particularly insightful observation the candidate made.
• Provide one piece of feedback about their critique approach (e.g., considering more user contexts, balancing business and user needs).
• Ask the candidate to expand on how they would address one of the issues they identified, incorporating the feedback you provided.

Activity #4: Collaborative Design Planning

This exercise assesses a candidate's ability to plan complex design projects and collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams—crucial skills for UX designers who must coordinate with developers, product managers, and other stakeholders.

Directions for the Company:

• Prepare a brief for a new feature or product enhancement that requires multiple screens and interactions.
• Include information about user needs, business goals, and technical constraints.
• Assemble a small panel (3-4 people) representing different roles: developer, product manager, and another designer.
• Allow 45-60 minutes for this exercise.
• Provide whiteboard space or collaborative digital tools.

Directions for the Candidate:

• Review the feature brief and ask clarifying questions.
• Create a high-level plan for approaching this design challenge, including:
• Key research questions and methods
• Major design phases and deliverables
• Potential design alternatives to explore
• Collaboration points with different team members
• Sketch a rough information architecture or user flow diagram.
• Present your plan to the panel and facilitate a 15-minute discussion to refine the approach.
• Be prepared to adjust your plan based on feedback from different perspectives.

Feedback Mechanism:

• Have each panel member provide brief feedback on one aspect of the candidate's plan they found valuable.
• The product manager should then present one additional business constraint or user need that wasn't initially mentioned.
• Give the candidate 10 minutes to explain how they would adapt their plan to address this new information.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How long should we allocate for these work samples?
  Each exercise requires 45-60 minutes to complete properly. We recommend conducting no more than two exercises in a single interview day to avoid candidate fatigue. The design critique or usability testing exercises work well as initial assessments, while the redesign challenge or collaborative planning are more comprehensive for final-round evaluations.
• Should we provide these exercises to candidates in advance?
  For the redesign challenge and design critique, providing materials 24 hours in advance allows candidates to prepare thoughtfully. The usability testing and collaborative exercises are better conducted live to assess real-time thinking and adaptation skills.
• How should we evaluate candidates across different exercises?
  Create a scorecard based on the key competencies for your specific UX role. Rate candidates on dimensions like problem-solving approach, user empathy, communication clarity, and technical understanding. Compare these ratings across candidates rather than focusing solely on the aesthetic quality of their solutions.
• What if a candidate is uncomfortable with the format of a particular exercise?
  Offer alternatives when possible. For example, if a candidate is uncomfortable with live sketching, allow them to use digital tools they're familiar with. The goal is to assess their design thinking and skills, not their performance under unnecessary pressure.
• How can we make these exercises inclusive for candidates with different backgrounds?
  Ensure exercises don't require specialized domain knowledge unless truly essential for the role. Provide clear context and be open to different approaches that may reflect diverse experiences. Focus evaluation on the thinking process and problem-solving rather than familiarity with specific tools or terminology.
• Should we compensate candidates for these exercises?
  For exercises conducted outside the interview process that require significant time (more than 2 hours), consider offering compensation, especially for senior roles. This demonstrates respect for candidates' time and expertise while ensuring you receive thoughtful work.

Finding the right UX Designer requires evaluating both technical skills and soft skills in context. These work samples provide a structured way to observe candidates applying their expertise to realistic scenarios, offering far more insight than portfolio reviews or hypothetical questions alone. By implementing these exercises as part of your interview process, you'll be better equipped to identify designers who will thrive in your specific environment and contribute meaningfully to your product's success.

For more resources to improve your hiring process, check out Yardstick's AI Job Description Generator, AI Interview Question Generator, and AI Interview Guide Generator.

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