What do you do if you need to showcase your skill in balancing user needs and business goals in an interview?

In the interview, I present case studies highlighting my ability to bridge user needs with business goals. I demonstrate how I conducted user research to understand needs, translated insights into actionable design decisions, and measured success through key performance indicators aligning with business objectives. Illustrating successful outcomes achieved by striking this balance showcases my value as a UX professional adept at creating user-centered solutions with business impact.

In an interview, you can demonstrate your ability to balance user needs and business goals by providing specific examples from your past experiences and discussing your thought process. Here are some steps to help you effectively showcase this skill: Share Relevant Projects Highlight Data-Driven Decisions: Show that you rely on data and user research to make informed decisions. Explain how you've used analytics, user feedback, and market trends to identify opportunities that benefit both users and the business. Emphasize Collaboration and Communication Explain Your Design Process Demonstrate Adaptability and Flexibility You can effectively communicate your expertise in this area during the interview with all i have listed.

When showcasing my skill in balancing user needs and business goals in an interview, I start by emphasizing the importance of understanding both sides of the equation. I explain that user needs are the foundation of any successful product or service, and that a deep understanding of the target audience is crucial for creating something that people will actually use. At the same time, I also highlight the need to consider the business goals and constraints, such as budget and timelines, in order to ensure that the final product or service is both viable and sustainable. I also give examples of how I've successfully navigated this balance in the past.

First priority would indeed be to thoroughly understand the company's objectives and the industry it operates in, next is to understand the people who use the product or service, create personas, who represent different types of users. These personas help to balance what users need with what the company aims to achieve.

In the interview, demonstrate how you have connected user needs with business objectives through your past experiences and projects. When explaining your research to someone, discuss how it informed your decisions and impacted your output (storyboards, personas, user journey maps, etc.). I'm also interested in HOW you developed your user empathy and employed it in creating your solution. What constraints did you have to navigate around? Who did you collaborate with, and what was your role specifically? How did your learnings from testing pivot your design? Know that academia is different than industry, and your process will only sometimes look like a double diamond. Be prepared for it or, better yet, simulate it in your projects.

Metrics, metrics, metrics: I'd emphasize the importance of using metrics to measure success in balancing user needs and business goals. Tracking KPIs such as conversion rates, customer satisfaction scores, or revenue growth, I can demonstrate the tangible impact of the decisions and strategies.

The best way to demonstrate how you meet users' needs and solve business problems in an interview is through case studies. In real design work, you usually deal with what business owners think users need, and user feedback can be a game changer. To show how you balance between users and business owners, you have to showcase not only what was implemented but also what caused discussions or wasn’t implemented. It’s great to show the compromise, as it demonstrates that you were really balancing between the two and ultimately found the perfect solution for both the user and the business owner.

Let’s say for example, Meta wants to monitise WhatsApp. First I will think as a customer. Talk about what makes WA special, like no advertisements, it’s free, ease of use, etc. What do I use it for: talking to friends, coworkers, join groups and communities, order groceries etc Then I will go to Meta’s goal, here monetisation. I will put across multiple ideas like ads, subscriptions, pro features like 50+ people group, paid stickers, e-commerce. Thinking from both these two perspectives will make a compelling case to NOT go with models like subscription & ads and try engagement driven ideas like e-commerce, paid stickers, or bigger groups.

Depending on the total time of product development, the market requirements can change in due course, be ready for changing the specifications in between so that the actual need gets addressed

The hardest part of design in my opinion is to sell it, which I understand as: demonstrating your value to stakeholders, the best way I have found is by communicating tangible benefits and outcomes of your actions.

prepare um portfólio que mostre projetos nos quais você efetivamente conciliou desejabilidade, viabilidade técnica e financeira. Use métricas para mostrar como seu design melhorou a experiência do usuário e ao mesmo tempo atingiu ou superou metas comerciais. Seja específico sobre sua metodologia e como sua abordagem foi adaptada para cada projeto, mostrando como considerou as necessidades de negócio e seus contextos de concorrência e tendências e indicadores de uso da solu??o.

It is about balancing the value proposition from the customer need and cost he is ready to pay and your solution and price at which it is available, so ensure that you strike a better balance.

Feedback from internal as well as external customers is key, and thus even the quick POC need to be tested in the market to gather feedback, be open and iterate.

I worked on a project in which business goals were more important than user goals because users themselves weren't aware of the need for that particular feature. This is a kind of edge case which needs a balance between business and user goals. While working on this project, initially we didn't go for user research but built the user-centered feature as per our understanding that was solving the business goal but post-launch we made sure to do usability testing and user interviews to understand if it's impacting our users. This strategy helped us to validate our solution and as a future goal can be further iterated to fulfill user goals.