Design & User Experience Topics
User experience design, frontend architecture, and design systems. Includes UX principles, accessibility, and design documentation.
Usability Testing and Iteration
Covers the end to end practices for evaluating and improving the usability of products and documentation through iterative user research. Topics include designing task based usability tests, defining success metrics (for example task success rate, time on task, error rate, satisfaction scores), recruiting representative participants, writing moderated and unmoderated test scripts, running in person and remote sessions, and synthesizing qualitative and quantitative findings. Also covers split testing and variant experiments, analytics and event tracking to validate behavioral changes, collecting and prioritizing feedback loops from support and field teams, and planning iterative content or product updates. Candidates should be able to explain examples of test design, participant screening criteria, moderation approach, findings synthesis, decision criteria for changes, how they balanced user feedback with business constraints, and how they measured post release impact. For documentation specific testing, include approaches to measure task completion using docs, A versus B documentation variations, documentation search and discoverability metrics, and examples of content revision driven by user observation and usage data.
Visual Communication and Multimedia
Covers the selection, creation, and integration of visual assets and multimedia to improve comprehension and usability of documentation and instructional content. Topics include when to use screenshots versus step by step imagery, when to use conceptual diagrams or flowcharts, and how to choose charts, tables, or infographics to represent data. Emphasize visual consistency, alignment with brand and documentation style, clear labeling, resolution and file format considerations, and maintaining currency as products change. Include accessibility practices such as descriptive alternative text, captioning for video, consideration for color contrast and screen reader friendliness, and localization considerations for translated assets. Discuss toolchains and workflows for producing visuals and multimedia, version control or asset management, collaboration with subject matter experts and designers, and trade offs between static images and interactive or animated media when appropriate. Stress that visual elements are functional components that reduce cognitive load, clarify procedures, and support diverse learning preferences.
Progressive Disclosure and Audience Design
Covers the principles and practices of structuring information for multiple audiences by using progressive disclosure to manage cognitive load. Candidates should be able to explain the theory of progressive disclosure, why limiting initial information reduces cognitive load, and when to reveal additional details on demand. This includes concrete strategies for serving beginners and advanced users or different roles and use cases within the same product documentation or interface: layered content (overview then details), summaries with expandable details, quick start guides, step by step tutorials, reference sections, role specific landing pages, contextual help, tooltips, and example driven content. Discuss design tradeoffs such as discoverability versus simplicity, maintaining consistency, versioning and referenceability, and accessibility considerations. Describe how to identify audience needs through personas, user research, and analytics, and how to structure navigation and information architecture so users can find the level of detail they need. Be prepared to give examples of implementation patterns, explain when progressive disclosure is inappropriate, and describe metrics to evaluate success such as task completion, time on task, support volume, heatmaps, and user feedback.
Taking and Implementing Feedback
Responding positively to interviewer suggestions, implementing changes gracefully, and building on feedback rather than getting defensive. Asking clarifying questions about feedback.
Portfolio Presentation and Impact
This topic assesses a candidate's ability to select, present, and defend their strongest design work at a senior level. Interviewers expect a deep dive into two to three representative projects that together show breadth and depth: varied problem types, user contexts, and levels of complexity. For each project, be prepared to explain the problem context and goals, research and discovery methods used, your design approach and rationale, how you evaluated trade offs and handled complexity, decisions about scope and prioritization, collaboration with cross functional partners, handoff and implementation details, measurable outcomes and impact, and the lessons learned. Candidates should demonstrate strategic thinking, influence and leadership, design craft, ability to drive outcomes, and clear storytelling using artifacts and artifacts annotations. Emphasize the why behind decisions, constraints you faced, the degree of your ownership, and how the work scaled or informed broader product direction.
Portfolio Project Case Studies
Prepare a set of three to five detailed portfolio case studies that demonstrate breadth and depth across formats, audiences, and technical complexity. For each case study, present the project context and goals, your specific role and team composition, the audience and how you researched their needs, the information architecture and content structure you chose, key design or documentation decisions and tradeoffs, technical challenges you addressed, and the final deliverables or artifacts such as screens, flows, or documentation samples. Quantify outcomes with metrics of success and business or user impact, and reflect on what you would do differently with current knowledge. Use a clear narrative structure such as Situation Task Action Result to explain the problem, your process, the actions you took, and the measurable results. Emphasize strategic thinking, organizational influence, process improvements, mentorship or collaboration contributions, and your ability to simplify complex concepts for target audiences.
Editing, Proofreading, and Improving Existing Content
Practice editing poorly written technical content to improve clarity, conciseness, and structure. Learn to identify jargon overuse, redundancy, unclear organization, and grammar issues. Rewrite verbose explanations in simpler language. Reorganize information for better logical flow. Explain your editing decisions and how changes improve the content for the target audience. This demonstrates that you can improve existing documentation and learn from examples.
Information Architecture
Covers principles and practices for organizing content so users can find and understand information efficiently. Topics include hierarchical structuring, categorization, labeling, progressive disclosure, grouping related topics, sequencing from overview to detail, and designing navigation and search strategies to improve discoverability and findability. Also includes audience consideration and multiaudience systems, choosing organizational approaches such as task based, conceptual, and reference structures, and creating outlines and documentation maps that show relationships between pieces of content and optimal flows for onboarding and task completion.
Usability Testing and Validation
Comprehensive skills for planning, conducting, analyzing, and applying findings from usability studies to improve product ease of use and user satisfaction. Topics include defining clear research goals and success criteria, recruiting representative participants, writing neutral tasks and scenarios, and selecting appropriate methods and fidelity levels. Candidates should be able to choose and justify moderated versus unmoderated sessions, remote versus in person methods, and lab versus field testing, and to decide when to use low fidelity prototypes, high fidelity prototypes, or production interfaces. Coverage includes moderation and facilitation techniques, observational best practices such as think aloud protocols, strategies to reduce bias and demand effects, accessibility and cross device testing, and capturing both qualitative and quantitative data including task success, time on task, error rates, behavioral observations, and satisfaction measures. The topic also covers approaches to analyze and synthesize findings, triangulate qualitative insights with metrics, prioritize usability issues into actionable recommendations, create testable hypotheses, communicate results to stakeholders, plan iterative validation cycles, and integrate usability testing with other validation methods such as heuristic evaluation, analytics review, and split testing. Practical considerations such as sample size trade offs, session logistics, recording and consent, and tools for remote and unmoderated studies are also included.