How to approach App Critiques
My comprehensive framework on how to approach an App Critique Interview
Late last year, I was actively looking for jobs — transitioning from Product Management to Product Design. This was going to be my first time interviewing for a Design role, and as someone from an engineering background, I had no clue what to expect. I spent hours reading design blogs, talking to mentors at 10kdesigners, and watching Indian design YouTubers to understand what the standard Product Design interview would look like.
For the most part, I was expecting my upcoming weeks to be filled with Portfolio Reviews, Take-Home assignments, and Culture fit rounds. However, during my interview process with Razorpay, I was introduced to the App critique round. While this is a standard part of the Product Design interview process abroad, and many Product companies in India are also picking it up, this was the first time I had heard of it.
Instinctively, I thought “App Critique” was about finding faults in the user experience, commenting on the negative aspects of an app, and recommending fixes. However, after talking to my recruiter and reading about App Critiques online, I realized there’s a lot more to it.
What is an App Critique?
An App Critique entails analyzing design choices, sharing your objective opinions, and providing constructive feedback about a given app. This is a way for interviewers to evaluate your product thinking, user experience, visual and interaction design skills, communication skills, and ability to give feedback.
- Design skills — How much do you understand core UI concepts such as typography, hierarchy, layouts, colour theory, as well as UX concepts such as accessibility, user journey, information architecture, usability, interactions, etc.
- Product thinking — Can you identify the value proposition and target users of the app? Can you analyze if the designed experience achieves the objectives of the app that you recognized earlier?
- Communication skills —As a designer, the ability to communicate feedback effectively is really important. Can you hold a productive discussion with your peers? How do you react to disagreements? Can you provide reasons for your feedback or do you just leave it at — “feel nahi aaraha hai”
Before the Interview
So your app critique round is scheduled — move some of the basic questions out of the way so that you can focus on the preparation. Your recruiters are always there for you and want to help you prepare for the interview. Some points to consider :
- Who picks the app and when is it picked: in the spot or pre-decided?
- If you have the liberty to choose your own app, pick an app that is popular enough for your interviewer to know, so that your interviewer has context. Eg. Spotify, Instagram, Google Maps, LinkedIn
- Don’t pick apps that are still in an MVP stage, or are obviously badly designed 😬, like banking and government apps.
- Confirm if the interviewers would want you to share your mobile screen and talk through the app. If yes, make sure you know how to login and share from the other device, as figuring it out on the spot may make you nervous.
Common mistakes while doing a critique
Once I understood the evaluation criteria and what to expect during the interview, I looked up resources to help me prepare, and picked an app — Zomato, to practice. After struggling with the critique, I watched a Youtube video to understand what I should be doing better.
- With lots of ‘ummm..’s and ‘soo..’s, I started critiquing the app, talking about what I like and dislike only to realize I was stating my own opinions about the app, rather than staying objective. You’re going to be designing products for users and not for yourself, so make sure to keep personal biases aside, and analyze how the app is solving user’s problems.
- It’s easy to get stuck on one thing if you do not have a solid thought process prepared about what you want to talk about. Make sure to touch upon every aspect of user experience, understand the target audience, what they’re trying to do, and focus your critique on how the app is solving their problem.
- Support your critique with valid and objective reasons.
- With so many things to talk about, I would often ramble on and on with no clarity in thought. This is what happens in many interviews as well — you may have all the knowledge that the interviewers are looking for, but you’re simply not prepared. So prepare a story to tell, and stick to the plot of that story.
How to tell a story for the critique
Before jumping in and declaring what’s good and what’s bad, establish an understanding of the app with the interviewers — this is the introduction of your story. Even if it is widely well known, start by talking about how YOU perceive the app. You can start by thinking of questions such as —
- What problem is it solving, and how does it solve it?
- Who do you think are the users and target audience of the app?
- Have you heard any interesting news about the app recently?
- Do you use the app yourself, how has your experience been?
- Who are the app’s competitors?
After the introduction, pick one user flow that you want to talk about start detailing that user journey. Examples:
- If you’re critiquing Instagram, you could pick — “ Uploading a Reel on Instagram as a creator”.
- If you choose Clubhouse you could pick — “Looking for a clubhouse session of my interest as a first-time user” where you can focus on onboarding and discoverability.
If you’re feeling particularly frisky that day, you can also ask your interviewers to pick a user journey for you :)
As you begin to go through the user journey, step into the user’s shoes and go through the entire user flow, and critique the way the user journey has been designed. Be intentional instead of rambling in an ill-thought manner. To do so, here are a few questions that I followed as a framework for my critiques. Feel free to add your own twist, and pick and choose whatever is applicable to your chosen user journey.
Product Thinking:
- What is the app’s value proposition?
- What features and user flows are present in the app? How does the feature you picked impact the company?
- What is the target audience for this feature?
- Does this feature help in user acquisition, user retention, user engagement, etc.?
- How does it fit into the company’s business model?
- Does the feature make users spend money or time on the app?
User Experience
- Is the feature easily discoverable? Does it need to be discoverable in the first place?
- How is the experience of getting started in the user journey? What is working well and what is not? What are the reasons for the same?
- Does the Information Architecture add structure to the feature? Or would you change it?
- Are there any other UX laws that you think could add value to the design?Eg. Jacob’s Law.
- Do you have any suggestions on how something could be improved?
- If yes, how would you go about it if you were working for that company? Would you talk to users to validate it? Would you take help from Researchers and PMs of the team?
- Was the app able to map the business goal in the user’s experience?
Visual Design
- What do you think about the colours and font used by the app? How does it tie back to the brand? Eg. the colour red is often associated with food and hunger, do you think that is the reason for Zomato’s brand colours?
- Highlight good as well as bad UI. Comment on what you like/dislike and why?
- Avoid only giving subjective or personal feedback — critique if the UI and Visuals work for the user and the business and why
- Is there consistency in the colours, buttons, illustrations, and text styles used across the app?
- Are the buttons, icons, help text, links, etc. legible? Is there enough contrast for the text to be readable and accessible?
- What are the affordances and signifiers to guide users on how to use the feature?
Interaction Design
- Does the app include general interactions that users are already used to, like tapping to view the next story?
- What animations can you see on the screen? How do they add value to the user?
- How do they handle transitions within the app?
- What interactions can you observe as you navigate through the app, and are they being used correctly? Eg. swipe, tap, scroll, press and hold, etc.
Thank you for reading!
Having a framework can help you prepare for this part of the interview like a pro, rather than feeling on the spot. This framework has helped me critique apps in a more structured manner, and I hope it helps you in some way too. I’d also like to thank Kshipra, Isha, and Radhika for helping me shape this article with their ̶r̶e̶v̶i̶e̶w̶s̶ , nay — critiques, and helping me become a better writer. :)
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Some of the resources I referred to during my interviews are listed below —
All the illustrations in this article are from the amazing artists at https://blush.design/
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