How To Judge Apps During A Design Challenge

How to solve a Product Design Challenge

Improve your chances of success with these tips

Hurray! You've passed the Portfolio Review and have now reached the final stage of the Product Design Interview: the Design Challenge. Admittedly if this is your first time interviewing, a Design Challenge can be nerve-wracking!

I will walk through an example of a Design Challenge that I submitted as part of my interview with Canva and highlight ways in which you can prepare for your own submission to improve your chances of success.

What's a Design Challenge?

A Design Challenge is a way for employers to assess how well you approach design problems and is often a good way to put your skills to the test. This typically happens towards the final end of the interview after you've completed the Portfolio Review. There are typically two types of Design Challenges that an employer can ask you to solve:

White Board Challenge

Expected time: 30min — 1 hour

A whiteboard challenge is usually done live in front of a panel of interviewers. This type of challenge will allow you to collaborate with the interviewing team and demonstrate your ability to problem-solve on the spot.

Take Home Design Challenge

Expected time: 4–6 hours

The take-home Design Challenge is done (as the name suggests) at home, separate to the live interviewing process. This type of challenge allows you to spend more time focussing on the end-to-end design process and go deep into tackling a complex problem or scenario that you normally wouldn't have time to complete during a shorter interview.

Why a Design Challenge?

A Design Challenge is a practical task to assess how well you approach design problems by applying your design skills to a real world scenario. The goal of this exercise is not to focus solely on the end solution, but to understand what your process is and evaluate where your strengths and opportunities lie. In addition to this, recruiters also look for these skills:

Communication. Being able to collaborate effectively with the team.
Critical thinking. Being able to ask good questions related to the problem.
Openness to feedback. Being open to constructive criticism

How should I approach the Design Challenge?

Regardless of whether this is a take home or whiteboard challenge, you should aim to communicate your design process and the steps you took to get to the solution as part of your submission.

Consider using the Product Design Process to guide your approach:

Understand the goal
Empathise with your users
Define the scope
Generate ideas to the solution
Prototype the solution
Measure success
Next steps

Example Design Challenge: Spotify Kids

This was a Design Challenge that I completed as part of my interview with Canva two years ago. Coincidentally enough, Spotify went ahead and launched their own version of the product a few months later!

The brief

Spotify has captured a majority of the music streaming market. Their product design is clean, clear, steps back and lets the artists shine. However, Spotify have left one segment out of the mix — children.

Internal research has shown that kids between the ages of 3–6 years old either don't have any access to Spotify or have to ask their parents to play their favourite music. Artists like The Wiggles, Peppa Pig and Yo Gabba Gabba are all missing out on customer engagement and revenue. It feels like the Spotify experience is aimed at grown-ups chilling out and rocking out; not for kids who like to have fun, dance and goof around.

YouTube has a standalone experience for kids. Spotify want to explore the same space — an unbundled, unique kids music experience. Spotify Kids wants to be the best music app for kids.

The task

As part of the Spotify product design team, you are leading the design team to create the best music app for kids. The starting point is the music player UX. Focus on the Spotify native app only — your choice on either iOS or Android.3

1. Start with Why

Before you jump into solution mode, take a moment to understand your goal. Don't be afraid to ask your interviewer clarifying questions to understand what their expectations are and what you should be aiming for.

It's important to describe the context of the problem and its significance in a few sentences. Consider the following:

Why is this product or feature important?
What problem are we trying to solve?
What impact does it have on the world?
How does this product benefit customers?
What business opportunity does it create?

In my case study, I focussed on communicating the positioning of the Spotify Kids brand in relation to the main Spotify product:

A brand for Spotify's boisterous little cousin. Spotify is looking to diversify their proposition and explore an untapped market that offers an unbundled, unique kids music experience for young children.

We created Spotify Kids, an app that parents could trust and allows 3–6 year olds to select and stream songs so that they can easily access and enjoy listening to their favourite music.

Spotify is a music, video, and podcast streaming service that aims "to help people listen to whatever music they want — in a completely legal and accessible way".

How might we:

Create a safe place trusted by parents that allow kids to be in charge of their music; and
Provide artists like The Wiggles, Peppa Pig and Yo Gabba Gabba with the opportunity to better reach and engage with their target audience?

2. Empathise with your users

Once you've established your Why, show how you conducted research to understand your user's pain points to define your user persona:

Who are you designing this product for?
What are their needs?
What are their pains?
What are their goals and motivations?

I conducted desk research to understand the needs of 3–6 year olds and the parents of 3–6 year olds:

Children (3–6 year olds):

Cannot read, require UI with simple shapes and clear colours.
Require feedback to understand that their action is doing something.
Avoid information overload, use progressive disclosure.
Don't have dexterity and muscular control of their hands/fingers so need limited and clearly defined interactions.

Parents of 3–6 year olds:

Safety and appropriateness of content is #1 priority
Want control over their child's digital experience
Seek educational apps that help early learning and facilitate bonding time
Conscious of too much screen-time
Drawn to apps that help remove frustration in everyday activities with kids (e.g at hairdressers, commuting to school or at the supermarket etc.)

From these insights, I went ahead and fleshed out the key product requirements. The Spotify Kids experience should meet the following criteria:

Safe and kid friendly experience. The app must ban or filter out any music that is explicit and contains adult content (e.g. profanity, nudity, violence etc.).
Parental controls. Provide parents with the control that gives them peace of mind. The app must have parental gates to prevent kids from accessing any outbound links or transactions involving real money.
Avoid in-app advertising. Advertising to children is illegal and strictly prohibited.
Simple, fun and easy to use. This app is designed to be used by 3–6 year olds so the interface must be simple enough for them to use and interact with.
Limit access to other parts of the phone. Any distractions (such as incoming calls, messages etc.) and ability to access the phone should be blocked whilst the app is in use.

3. Define the scope

Mapping out the user journey will help to communicate the end to end experience of a product from a user's perspective. You should use a flowchart tool such as Figjam, Whimsical or Miro to show what steps a user would take to complete key actions in your product. Consider the following:

Keep it simple. Don't overcomplicate your user journey with edge cases or anything that isn't considered as part of the critical path.
Define the MVP. What set of features in this product will deliver the highest value to users and the business with the lowest effort?

For the Spotify Kids user journey, I identified the following tasks that a user should complete to achieve their goal:

Log into the app. Users must log in or sign up for an account.
Browse song recommendations. Select songs by artist, album or activity.
Search for a song (optional). Enter keywords and phrases (by voice or text).
Select a playlist to listen to. View the music player to pause, play, skip forward and backward songs.
Connect to a device (optional). Parents can connect the app to an external speaker or IOT devices.
Manage app setting. Parents can access the lock icon to manage their kid's accounts, set timer on app usage and more.

I also went and defined what was critical for MVP vs. a nice to have (post-MVP):

4. Generate ideas to the solution

If you're working on an on-site exercise, aim to deliver the following:

Wireframe flows
User journeys
A list of ideas
Sketches of any kind.

For take-home exercise, the final deliverables would be a high-fidelity clickable prototype, but all the techniques described above would be used to create a foundation for the high-fidelity solution.

Competitor analysis

Competitor research is important in the ideation stage as this allows you to refer to how other products have solved for this problem and also potentially seek inspiration for new ideas. Consider:

Key features. What are other competitors doing in this space to solve this problem?
Design patterns. How did their products inspire or inform your design direction?

I conducted competitor research with children apps such as YouTube Kids, Foxtel Kids, Khan Kids, ABC Kids, Endless ABC, Nickelodeon Play and identified the following common design patterns:

Landscape mode and horizontal scroll
Splash animation opening
Sound feedback on interactions
Background music
Simple shapes and bright colours
Cartoon characters and avatars
Large identifiable clickable areas
Parental controls
Simple tap interactions
Unable to close/exit app during usage unless power button is pressed (no distractions)

I then considered these patterns as part of my design solution in the high fidelity prototype. As a general rule, aim for 6 screens at a maximum when you are designing the end to end experience.

5. Prototype the solution

Once you have settled on a final solution, it's time to mock it up in a design and prototyping tool. I would recommend using Figma but you can also choose something like Sketch or Marvel.

Consider the branding and UI. If you are designing a new feature for an existing product, stick to their brand guidelines and design system — you want to ensure it stays true to the look and feel of the product. If it's a brand new product, ensure that the look and feel is visually consistent and appropriate for the brand.
Focus on one user journey. Don't overcomplicate your product by having multiple user journeys combined into one. Stick to six screens as a general rule and only take the user through the critical flow.

For the Spotify Kids app, I had a prototype prepared but I also crafted slides for the key screens to communicate the core parts of the user journey.

Browse music

Users can either browse by:

Album or artist. Recommendations of popular children's songs and albums are shown when the app has loaded. Horizontal scrolling is used to progressively disclose content to avoid information overload.
Activity or theme. Content is also filtered by activity / themes so that parents and kids can select playlists designed around everyday activities e.g. bedtime, bath time etc.

Music player

Once inside the Spotify player, users can:

Start playlist: Selecting a song will commence the playlist for that album or artist. The song title and artist will briefly appear before fading out.
Play music: As the song plays, controls will disappear, leaving only the image of the song to show. This is intended to minimise distractions.
Manage song: Tapping on the screen will bring up the music player controls to stop/start/skip/rewind songs. There is also the option to go back to the main screen or connect to devices.

Search songs

Search by text or voice: Enter keywords and phrases to search for songs. Voice command can be used for users who cannot type.
View search results: A list of songs, albums and artists related to the keyword will appear in a horizontal scroll. Clicking on 'x' will clear the search.

Parental controls

Settings for the app are gated with questions that can only be understood by parents. This allows parents to set a timer on app usage, manage child profiles, and more.

6. Measure success

Remember to tie your solution back to the original goal of this project by considering how you will track the usage of your feature in product and specifically which success metrics you should be monitoring.

Some useful metrics to monitor would include:

User acquisition. How many customers end up buying or downloading the good or service.
Engagement. How users interact with the product in a desirable way.
Task success rate. The percentage of correctly completed tasks by users.
Task completion time. The time it takes for the user to complete the task.
Retention. How often an action is taken by users.
Revenue. In what way does the product make money and how much does it make?
Conversion. The percentage of users who took a desired action.

To measure the success of the Spotify Kids launch, we would look at the:

# of app downloads as an indicator of acquisition
# of monthly active users as an indicator of usage and retention
# of songs streamed an indicator of engagement

7. Next steps

Lastly, talk about the things you would've done if you had more time or what you would do differently. Recruiters may ask further questions related to your submission so be prepared to answer these. Consider the following:

Usability testing. Which parts of the flow you would validate as part of usability testing to test your assumptions?
MVP vs. non MVP. Explain what your solution addresses and what it does not. It would create a clear picture of the constraints you operated in.
Working with engineers. How might you work with engineers to build an MVP?
Consider how this might fit into their existing product. When interviewing with established companies, be mindful of the fact that they have a business in many verticals. Suggest ways in which your product could be integrated with other parts of their ecosystem.

How can I prepare for design challenges?

If you'd like to get more practice on solving Design Challenges, I would recommend taking a look at the following resources:

Solving Design Exercises written by Artiom Dashinsky goes through several Design Challenges that you can do to prepare for your next interview.
You can also subscribe to his weekly newsletter which will give you some insight into the types of Design Challenges that companies like Google and Airbnb give to their candidates.
This Product Design Challenge competition provides useful guidelines on how to approach the Design Challenge with great examples of winner submissions you can reference to.

Key takeaways

Show, don't tell. Back yourself up with evidence whether it's in the form of user research insights, lo-fi sketches, wireframes, user journey maps, usability testing results etc. It's much more compelling (and convincing) when you are able to show interviewers what you did.
Storytelling is key. Every good narrative starts with a problem, takes us on a journey of how the protagonist overcomes challenges and reaches a solution. As a designer this is no different. Recruiters want to hear about your journey and how you came up with the final solution. Use the Design Process as a framework to structure your story.
Show your breadth of skills. For Product Design roles, recruiters are looking at whether you are able to work on products end to end. This means that if the challenge asks you to create a product, don't spend so much time on understanding the problem that you end up compromising on the final solution!
Prioritise your work effectively. Related to the above, try to spend half of your time on understanding the problem and the other half on the solution. As the law of diminishing returns suggest, there's only so much effort you can spend on a Design Challenge until the reward of investing further becomes smaller.
Prepare a presentation. Don't walk interviewers through a messy Figma file without having a logical and coherent narrative. Have a presentation prepared and be intentional with the content on each slide. Avoid walls of text.

Final words

Finally, know that an interview is not just a one-way conversation — it's a two way street. Treat this as an opportunity to learn more about the company and whether the role fits in with your goals as a designer. Don't forget to ask the interviewer questions towards the end. Good luck!