Critique against the goal, not your taste. Ask what problem the work is solving and what feedback they want before you comment. Then separate observation from judgment: say what you notice, what user consequence you predict, and why, and leave the solution to them. Prioritize a few important issues rather than listing everything, and be specific enough that they could act on it tomorrow.
Why interviewers ask this
Critique quality determines whether a design team gets better or just gets along, and senior designers are hired partly to raise that bar. The interviewer wants to see that you anchor feedback to user goals rather than personal preference, that you can be direct without being unkind, and that you know when to prescribe a solution and when to hand the problem back.
How to structure your answer
- Ask for the goal and the kind of feedback wanted before you speak.
- Describe what you observe, then the consequence you predict.
- Tie every point to a user or business goal, never to preference.
- Limit yourself to the few things that matter most.
- Offer to pair on the hard parts rather than redesigning it for them.
Example answer
First question is always what are you trying to do here, and what kind of feedback is useful right now. Early exploration and a pre-launch review need completely different conversations, and giving polish notes on a rough concept wastes everyone's time. Then I try to say what I see before what I think. So rather than 'this feels cluttered', which is unactionable, something like: there are four things competing for attention in this area, and I think a first-time user will not know that the primary action is save, because it sits below two secondary buttons. Now they can disagree with my prediction, which is the point. I also force myself to pick the top two or three things. If I list eleven, the important one gets buried next to my opinion about an icon. And I try to stay out of solutions unless they ask, because when the most senior person in the room offers a fix, it stops being a suggestion and becomes an instruction, even when you do not mean it that way.
Walking into this interview soon? GhostPilot listens to your live call, spots the question the moment it is asked, and puts a structured answer on your screen in real time. Try it on your next mock, or grab a $29 Session Pass, no subscription, for the real thing.
See how it worksFollow-up questions to expect
- How do you give hard feedback to someone more senior than you?
- How do you handle critique in a room full of non-designers?
- What do you do when someone ignores your feedback repeatedly?
Related ux designer questions
Your interviewer will ask their own version of this. Paste your actual job description into the free Question Predictor and get the 20 questions that role is most likely to ask, with what each one is really probing.
Predict my questions