Nicholas Vargo

I’ve historically not had the highest self esteem. So if somebody were to stop me walking down the street and ask me what I’m good at, I’d pause for a minute or two trying to wrangle one of my achievements in my head and spit out the first thing I can think of. I walk through most of my day unconscious of my proudest moments because I don’t feel special. I mean I know I’m unique, and different, but special? Something about that word just won’t stick with my brain. The word special has another meaning to me. It separates the best from the best; the special from the unique.  Special people usually have a great track record to show all their achievements and hold themselves to a higher standard because they don’t just deserve better, they know that they deserve better.

Recently I was approached about a job opportunity which made me feel like the luckiest guy in the world (red flag number 1). The job was high paying, remote, and seemed to be the kind of job that I’ve been trying to land. Should I have known something was fishy from the start? Maybe, but after you’ve been kicked down and think you’ve hit rock bottom and someone seemingly offers you an escape, you take it. I thought all my good karma had finally caught up to me, I was finally going to feel happy after so much time missing the feeling. 

I was advanced to their fake interview stage where I wrote and responded to twenty-two questions about me, my work, and my relationship with design. I dedicated one whole day to filling out these questions, making sure I hype myself up so there was no way they could pass on me. My responses came out to around 8 pages when I had finished. I told myself no matter what that I was proud of my answers, and I was. Writing out all these details of my abilities and experience in my past made me realize just how talented and qualified I am for these kinds of positions. I’m not just on a whim deciding that “Hey this job field seems cool”. I have years of experience and even more years of education that built me into who I am. It’s very easy to write yourself off after countless rejections to job applications I’ve received all summer. But, this moment brought out something in me at least just for a moment. 

Sure, this experience didn’t cure me of all my low self esteem. But, I now have a greater appreciation of my talents. I am worthy of the job or future that I want. It’s just taking a bit more patience, dedication, and resilience. Fingers crossed this was my lowest low. But hey, now I do know I’m at least a little special.

I’ll leave below my responses to these interview questions so I can get some use out of the work I put into them 😉

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Candidate’s Name: Nicholas Vargo 

1. Are you currently employed? No, I am currently not employed. 

2. Why did you decide to become a UI/UX Designer? I decided to become a UI/UX designer because of my passion for technology and my interest in how we display information in an approachable manner. I think I am great at connecting with the user’s needs and wants and being able to take those into consideration as I iterate on a project. Being a UI/UX designer is a way to be involved in tech without being too distant from the users themselves. 

3. What are your strengths and weaknesses as a UI/UX Designer? As a UI Designer, some of my biggest strengths include my ability to put myself in the user’s shoes and see something I made without too much of an overbearing bias as the creator of a design. I am articulate about every detail, making sure no idea is left unseen, and have made in depth design documents for apps and games I have worked on. One of my weaknesses would be my perfectionism, as I feel like there is always room to improve on a design and I dislike leaving a wireframe or concept half baked. 

4. Do you prefer to work in a team or work alone? I prefer to work in a team. I enjoy bouncing ideas off one another and working collaboratively, but I can complete my work fast when I am alone as well. 

5. What’s your ideal work environment? Considering this is a remote position, my ideal work environment would primarily be at my desk where I have direct communication with all my team members. I enjoy doing stand ups as it gives me an opportunity to share my work and catch up on what everybody else is up to. I enjoy making my standups productive and social. 

6. How would you define UX design? I would define UX design as design oriented around studying and amplifying the ease of the user’s interaction with the interfaces. UX design is bigger than just how the user interacts with the interface, but it also covers external variables, such as when or where the user is using this product. It could also cover the cultural backgrounds of users. For example, colors mean different things in different cultures, so it is important to research the backgrounds of users who the product is designed for. 

7. How is UX design different from UI design? UX, while like UI, is more focused on the user end and how users interact with the product. UX can take into consideration a variety of attributes surrounding the user, like where is the user using this product? Are they alone when using the product? What device is the user accessing the product? All these questions should be taken into consideration as a designer starts out working on a product. Whereas UI design is defined as more focused on crafting the interface itself. In this sense, UI design is part of building an effective UX design. 

8. What is meant by design thinking? Design thinking refers to how designers consciously think when they are developing a design. Anyone can make a UI, but designers do it best when they exercise design thinking and ensure there is a flow to the product. It is about thinking outside of yourself and what you want, and being aware of the user and what would benefit them the most. 

9. What are the important skills for a UX designer? I would argue one of the most surprising skills for a UX designer would be empathy. The designer needs the ability to emphasize with a user and their struggle so that they can learn and improve the product. Other skills like point of view, perspective, and communication and critical for a designer to effectively create a product. 

10. Explain your design process. My design process is moderately agile. I start by researching the problem part or pain issue. Then I research who the user is, this is important even more so during the prototyping and user-testing process. My design app of choice is Figma as I feel the most freedom to create with the app, as it is very flexible and easy to iterate upon. After creating a few wireframes and paper prototypes, I present these to the user or available testers. I take their feedback and then iterate upon my concept and begin transferring the paper prototypes into Figma. Here is where my designs spend their most time as they continue to grow and improve. Then the cycle continues, iteration is key in my design process. 

11. How do you decide which features to add to your design? It can be easy to get swept up in the moment when adding tons of features to a design. That is why I believe it is important to always call back to the primary function of what function the design is being built to perform. Does this new feature impede the user’s experience? Is it necessary? These are important questions to ask before I decide to add a feature to a design. 

12. What research methods do you use? Most of the research methods I use include focus groups and testing the product with other people. I have experience designing the app Bubble, available for view on my portfolio, utilizing many research methods. I enjoy more conversational focus group interviews so that testers can feel more comfortable to speak their thoughts. I have also conducted digital surveys to receive feedback, where I carefully crafted non-leading questions to get the most accurate information. 

13. What are your biggest strengths? My biggest strengths while designing would be my ability to design in depth wireframes and systems for a product. Also, I am a fast learner and a close listener. These strengths all help me become a more well versed and creative designer. 

14. How do you handle negative feedback? I handle negative feedback well, as I understand it is all part of the process. In my past, I participated in musical theatre, where we received negative feedback a lot of the time, but we recognized this feedback is not meant to be mean, it is meant to help us grow and deliver a better performance. I believe the same attitude can be brought into feedback towards my UI designs. 

15. Tell us about a design example that solved a business problem? During my last semester at Pitt, I was in a team of other designers tasked with updating the App Armor application to make it more accessible. The problem here was that App Armor is a security system that requires the user to be unbelievably well-versed in coding, as the whole application is terminal based. This makes the application difficult to use. As a solution to this problem, my team and I focused on creating an interface that was more inviting. To do this, I added buttons that would perform similar tasks to typing lines of code into a terminal. The whole focus as I designed this new application was making it faster and easier to edit and access this security application. 

16. Describe universal design. I believe universal design to be a product/app designed to bypass just aesthetics and looking nice, but rather the app is functional with ease and allows users to enter the flow state. In this state the user should not have to think about the psychological barrier between the user and the product. But rather, the UI acts as a perfect mediator, so that using the product feels like second nature. 

17. How would you make a product accessible to differently-abled users? I have direct experience performing this exact thing. The game I designed during my internship last year, Next Stop, was created and designed with an audience of kids aged 13-17 with autism. We had a unique challenge with this audience. I performed research online on kids with autism using learning apps, how autism affects the learning process, and what were the most effective ways to learn as a person with autism. After all this research, I began to design within this framework, making sure details are well explained, that help/support was always just a tap away, and that new learning objectives were not overlapping with one another. During our development process, our team also discovered that one of our mentors was colorblind, and one feature of our game relied on users knowing what a color looked like. So, I came up with the idea to spell out the color on the side of the object, so that even users who could not see the color itself could still bypass this hurdle within the game. I believe it is incredibly important to design for a wide audience of users, including those differently-abled than others so that the product is available and accessible to as many people as possible. 

18. How would you improve the UX of our product? I can improve the UX of your product by offering a new perspective as a young designer with a drive to ensure the user has all that they need without overwhelming them. I would focus on putting myself in the user’s shoes, and I have an eye trained to be conscious of if design flows or not. In terms of the UX, I also have a particular interest in making sure the product does not exist in a vacuum. I want to ensure that external factors don’t interfere with the products’ intended functionality. 

19. How do you conduct the UX evaluation of a product? I would typically conduct a UX evaluation with a tester who had not used the product before. Typically, I give a brief overview of the product to the tester, only providing the basics. I then ask them if they have any experience using products of a similar type. I then ask them to explore the product at their own pace. As I observe, I take notes and mark times for key points during the playtest, such as when they clicked this button or how long they spent on a specific screen. After the test, I ask how they would imagine themselves interacting with the product, such as where they would use it or how often they would use it. My focus while conducting a UX evaluation is to highlight moments of struggle and then run over those moments with the user to smooth out their experience.

20. What are the key differences between designing for desktop and mobile? Designing for desktop and mobile not only have tactile differences, but visual differences as well. Most desktops have a similar enough display and versatility to adjust to any product’s resolution, but phones are very different. From my experience designing games for mobile, we needed to ensure we were testing our game and its interface on the correct expected resolution users would play the game on. If this were not accounted for, the interface would morph and not look correctly, thus interfering with the user’s experience. Other differences such as the user’s familiarity with the device the product is designed for are also important. 

21. How would you rate your communication skills with your previous/present team members that you’ve worked with? I would rate my communication skills very high. I was constantly in communication with my team members, updating them whenever I had a new design to pitch or a new prototype to test. We primarily used Slack to communicate with each other, but when I needed more immediate feedback and I knew my team members had a few moments to talk, I would walk over to their desk to chat and see if they could review what I had to showcase. Overall, I am very open with communication and want to make sure everyone is on the same page as me when needed. 

22. How could your skills and experience add value to our organization? I am not just versed in App UI design, but also Game UI Design, thus I have a unique and impressive flexibility when it comes to my own skills. I have designed prototypes for Apps and Games within Figma. I am an extremely hard worker and am focused on always learning and improving. I would love the opportunity to work for your organization and provide my diverse skill set. 

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Hey you made it this far, how about some media I can share with you 🙂

Book: Lapvona by Otessa Moshfegh: Very weird book and I’m only halfway through, not something I’d typically read But, it does have some interesting points on religion and pain.

Movie: How to Blow Up a Pipeline : Love a movie on film

Music : My Love All Mine by Mitski