UX Research
Why current resources aren’t good enough
I keep mentioning the tech & front-end handbook as inspirations for this website. To see why they are so good, let’s first look at the current top resources for UX interview questions on Google.
- These are blog posts on websites that are designed to use SEO to market and sell their courses, products, and services.
- The content is superficial. Most questions are behavioral, which are important but not unique to UX, and can be misleading because technical questions are commonly asked to screen candidates. Users who prepare using only these top websites can get a false sense of confidence and preparation.
- They don’t link resources or cite their sources. Some answers are too short and aren’t satisfactory, and should redirect the user to more resources.
- 2 of 3 websites have poor UX. UX designers are sensitive to bad UX, which makes it annoying and even frustrating to use.
These types of web pages are the top search results for other similar, related search phrases as well. There was no existing resource dedicated to preparing UX designers for their interviews—except one, but it’s a product design book that isn’t free.
What makes the other guides so great?
- They are comprehensive resources dedicated to preparing people for interviews. It covers all the essential aspects of interviewing and provides a clear structure for the entire interview process.
- They provide clear answers to questions and cite their sources for readers to go more in-depth.
- Simple, clean, and non-intrusive design. It has a good navigation structure to allow users to navigate and find content quickly, and even helps create a mental model of the interview process.
- Free to use and open-source. There are no paywalls to prevent users from accessing content, and has been thoroughly vetted by the open-source community.
SWE & Front-end have a big open-source culture, so there are tons of free resources that help people interview. Despite the existing competition, the Tech Handbook & Front-end Handbook have both become popular resources.
If we imagine a website like this except for UX, we can see what a successful UX Interview Handbook looks like. The challenge now is to tailor it to UX, so I began by furthering my understanding of the potential users.
Who are our users?
Our primary demographic will be young, new graduates preparing for their first UX interviews. They might have a variety of different degrees and backgrounds, but most will not have a comprehensive knowledge of all interdisciplinary fields that influence UX, so the handbook should briefly cover all of the basics to make them more well-rounded UX practitioners.
- UX juniors. College students, new graduates, and people trying to get into UX are preparing for their job interviews.
- UX professionals. They might be preparing to interview again but are unfamiliar with the current interviewing process or need to brush up on the basics. They could be using it as a general UX reference.
- UX interviewers. Interviewers may use this as an interviewing resource or question bank to ask their candidates.
Information about UX professionals was derived from NN Group's report on User Experience Careers.
Context/Environment/Habits
When are they studying? What kind of mindset are they in? What are they doing? What are their habits? Some people immerse themselves into the preparation process, studying whenever they have the downtime to think-during bus rides, car rides, etc. They could be at their desk, room, or library, in a deep flow state. Whereever our users are, the website needs to be accessible and responsive to support all users and devices in various environments.
Interview preparation is partly an exercise in self-reflection. Users must be aware and honest about their abilities, so the website must support that by removing distractions—no flashy animations or anything unexpected, annoying, or distracting. Dark mode is essential for our night-owls make it easier on their eyes and giving users more control over their environment.
Another anticipated use case is to use it as a quick reference before going into interviews. To support this, I provided a search function using Algolia DocSearch so users can easily search and reference material.
User Goals & Needs
Users are here because they are looking to prepare for their interviews. Their idea of preparation might be to get interview questions and answers, but deep interview preparation goes beyond that. With this perspective, it makes sense to include sections that prepare users for design challenges and presentations, arguably the more challenging parts of UX interviews. These additional resources were added to fully meet their needs and goals.
How do users know to trust the information on this website? Briggs, Simpson, and De Angeli (2004) looked at trust in advice websites and developed a model of how people determine whether or not to trust the advice they receive from websites. The authors developed a 22-point scale designed to break down trust into a set of judgments that can be measured. They are:
- whether the user perceives the information to be prepared by an expert or a knowledgeable source
- whether comments from other users were available on the site
- if the site was owned by a known and respected company
- if they had to wait a long time on the site
- if different options were suggested by the site
- if the site was perceived as hard to use
- whether the user felt involved in how the site constructed the advice offered
- if the site was perceived to be interactive
- if the advice was tailored to the user
- if the reasoning was explained to the user
- if there was an opportunity to contact a human
- if the advice appeared to be impartial
- if the advice was perceived to be good and the user trusted it
- if the site behaved in a predictable way
Some of these issues, such as user comments, cannot be realistically addressed because of the additional complexity of working with a database and API. For other issues, there are a few ways to tackle them. The first is through transparency. For each question, I cite the resources used to answer them and show how the questions were sourced.
Asking for feedback can demonstrate that we value their opinions and are constantly looking to improve. Providing contact information can increase trust. Advertising that we are open-source signifies that it is community focused and thoroughly proofread.
For normal prep, users can explore the website however they want. For people with less time, they might be more selective of things to learn. To support this, I indicated which questions I felt they should focus on.
Business Strategy & Goals
My strategy was to create an MVP for market validation and feedback, so I set a deadline and scaled the project scope to meet that deadline.
Monetization was not a real consideration for this project, but can be achieved through sponsors & advertising deals. This means the website needs to be professional, accurate, trustworthy, and have high user traffic with analytics to demonstrate value. For open source projects, marketing by posting it on online communities will be the best way to get it out there.
The idea is easy to copy and isn’t difficult to develop, so being the first to market will be key to capturing the initial market and gaining an advantage over potential competitors. My deadline was set to June 2022 so new grads can use it to study for their interviews.
Constraints
- Time to market is critical, so development has to be fast. With a custom website, there is more flexibility for design but requires more developmental investment. In contrast, frameworks such as Docusaurus have less development time, but it may be challenging to make significant changes since it locks you in an existing framework. Since the design I had in mind was relatively simple and time-to-launch was critical, I used Docusaurus.
- Since this is an advice/information/content-based website, copywriting will be extremely important. To deliver high-quality content to my users, I need to essentially become an expert in interviewing and focus on UX writing.
- Limited development resources. Since I would have to do both the design, development, and copywriting, I need to limit the project’s scope to meet the deadlines. The plan was to focus on development and technical questions first, then get the behavioral questions sorted and figure out how to answer those later.
To work within these constraints, design and development went hand in hand. I prototyped and designed the website as I developed it, which provided a considerable advantage as traditional design and prototyping may have taken too much time.
