Interview questions in Design & UX, page 23
Explain token aliasing in design systems
Primitives hold raw values, semantic tokens reference them by intent, components consume only semantic ones.
How would you track clicks on a new 'Export Data' button?
Tests prod analytics design beyond console.log. Outline: typed event schema, client validation, beacon or queue with batching, and queryable storage. Red flag: fire-and-forget tracking without retry, sampling, or privacy checks.
How do you structure Figma pages for a new project and handoff?
What it tests: systems thinking and empathy for cross-functional workflows. A strong answer names a Cover page, separate WIP and Handoff pages, and a linked component library with consistent naming.
Replace a hardcoded error message with a scalable copy system
Tests decoupling UI copy from code via key-based i18n. Move the string into a JSON namespace, wire through i18next, load dynamically, and lint against hardcoded strings. Manual find-and-replace without keys or fallback is a red flag.
Client-side versus server-side A/B testing
Client-side flickers and is bypassable; server-side assigns before response, hides logic, suits backend changes.
Designing a flexible yet usable DataTable API
Sensible defaults, compound or slot-based composition for flexibility, props for common cases.
How do you update a component in a published Figma team library?
Edit main, publish with notes, consumers get update alerts, review or bulk-accept, verify overrides.
Design an A/B test system for homepage headlines without deployments
Tests decoupling experiment configuration from deploys via a headless CMS and feature flagging. A strong answer covers variation containers, server-side bucketing, conversion tracking, and marketer-controlled copy swaps.
Consistent A/B bucketing across sessions and devices
Hash a stable user ID with experiment salt, not random or cookie-only; beware caches keyed without variant.
Architecting decoupled but linked Tabs components
A Tabs context provider holds active state, TabList and TabPanel consume it anywhere inside the provider.
How would you structure file covers and naming to communicate design status
Tests self-serve design ops for cross-functional partners. Strong answers cover color-coded covers, prefixed names with status and version, and role-based permissions. Red flag: relying on Slack updates instead of file-based clarity.
Design a real-time faceted search system for thousands of case studies
Tests inverted index architecture and faceting latency trade-offs. Strong answers compare Elasticsearch and Algolia on indexing speed and query overhead, then outline schema-first ingestion. Red flag: suggesting relational LIKE queries for real-time filtering.
Sampling 5% of users for a one-time survey
Hash user ID for the 5% gate, persist a 'shown' flag, race-safe single display.
Versioned documentation site for a design system
Snapshot docs per release, version-prefixed routes, a version switcher, canonical latest.
How do you merge a Figma branch and resolve component conflicts?
Review main changes, open conflict picker, compare side-by-side, accept or blend component edits, publish library updates.
Cut a 15-minute demo script to 10 minutes without losing technical depth
Tests ruthless prioritization. Strong answers: define the single audience outcome; audit sections against it; prioritize clarity over volume; structure around the 10-minute attention reset. Red flag: talking faster or randomly cutting content.
Designing an in-house A/B testing platform
Config service, deterministic bucketing SDK, metrics pipeline, analysis engine; fix peeking with fixed samples or sequential tests.
Deprecating a widely used component gracefully
Announce and document replacement, soft-deprecate with runtime and type warnings, ship codemods, remove only in a later major.
Monolithic or multiple libraries for cross-platform design system?
This tests cross-platform design system architecture. Pick multiple interconnected libraries, centralize tokens in a shared primitive layer, and branch platform components downstream. Red flag: one monolithic file ignoring native rendering constraints.
What are the engineering challenges and biases in overlapping A/B tests?
This tests inference across concurrent experiments. A strong answer names interaction effects and collision bias, proposes mutual exclusion or MVT for coupled UI, and stratified bucketing. Red flag: assuming additive lifts without combination validation.
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