Figma Design Tests: A Guide to Fair and Effective Evaluation
Randall Carter
Figma Design Tests: A Guide to Fair and Effective Evaluation
The Great Debate: Pros and Cons of Design Skills Tests
The Argument For: Assessing Real-World Skills
The Argument Against: Unpaid Labor and Bias
How to Create a Fair and Effective Design Challenge
Define Clear Objectives: What Are You Testing For?
Keep It Short and Respectful of Their Time
Provide a Realistic, Fictional Prompt
Always Offer to Pay for Their Time
What to Look For When Evaluating a Submission
Clarity of Thought and Process
Figma File Organization
Follow-Up Discussion, Not Just a Grade
Alternatives to Traditional Take-Home Tests
Live Collaborative Whiteboarding Session
In-Depth Portfolio Deep Dive
Paid, Small-Scale Pilot Project
References
Figma Design Tests: A Guide to Fair and Effective Evaluation
Design tests, or take-home assignments, are a controversial topic in the hiring process. When done poorly, they can be exploitative and ineffective. When done well, they can provide valuable insights that a portfolio alone cannot. This guide will help you decide if a skills test is right for your process when you hire a Figma designer and how to structure it fairly.
If you're hiring internationally, there are additional considerations for vetting remote designers. The challenge becomes even more complex when you're trying to determine whether you need a Senior vs. Junior Figma Designer for your team. Let's dive into how to create a fair evaluation process that works for everyone involved.
The Great Debate: Pros and Cons of Design Skills Tests
The design community is deeply divided on skills tests. Some hiring managers swear by them. Many designers hate them with a passion. Understanding both perspectives is crucial before you decide whether to include a test in your hiring process.
The Argument For: Assessing Real-World Skills
Proponents of design tests make some compelling points. A portfolio shows what someone has done, but a test shows what they can do right now. It's like the difference between looking at photos of someone's past meals and watching them cook in your kitchen.
When you give candidates a specific challenge, you get to see their problem-solving process in action. You learn how they interpret briefs, manage their time, and handle constraints. These are things that even the most beautiful portfolio can't fully reveal.
Technical skills also become crystal clear during a test. You can see if someone really knows their way around Figma or if they've been relying on others to polish their work. Their file organization, component usage, and design system thinking all become visible.
The standardization aspect is another big plus. When every candidate tackles the same challenge, you create a level playing field for comparison. This can be especially helpful when evaluating designers from different backgrounds or industries.
The Argument Against: Unpaid Labor and Bias
Critics of design tests raise equally valid concerns. The biggest issue? Time. Many tests ask for 8, 10, or even 20 hours of work. That's essentially asking someone to work for free for multiple days. It's not just unfair—it's exploitative.
This time requirement creates a huge equity problem. Single parents, people with multiple jobs, or those with caregiving responsibilities simply can't dedicate a full weekend to an unpaid project. You're automatically filtering out talented people based on their life circumstances, not their skills.
There's also the stress factor to consider. Design tests often feel like high-pressure exams. Some brilliant designers freeze up under these conditions. Their test performance might not reflect their actual abilities when working in a supportive team environment.
The potential for bias is another serious concern. Without careful structuring, evaluators might favor design styles that match their personal preferences rather than assessing objective quality. Cultural differences in design aesthetics can also unfairly influence evaluations.
Many designers also point out that their portfolio already demonstrates their abilities. If you can't assess someone's skills from their existing work, maybe the problem isn't with their portfolio—it's with your evaluation process.
How to Create a Fair and Effective Design Challenge
If you've weighed the pros and cons and decided a test is necessary, you need to design it thoughtfully. A good test respects the candidate's time while giving you the insights you need. Here's how to create one that's actually fair.
Define Clear Objectives: What Are You Testing For?
Before you write a single word of your design brief, ask yourself: what exactly do I need to know about this candidate? Vague objectives lead to vague tests that waste everyone's time.
Are you primarily interested in their visual design skills? Then focus on that. Need to know if they can think through complex user flows? Design your test around information architecture. Want to see how they handle design systems? Make that the core challenge.
Be ruthlessly specific. Instead of "redesign this homepage," try "create three mobile screens showing how a user would complete this specific task." The narrower your focus, the more useful the results.
Write down your evaluation criteria before you see any submissions. What constitutes excellent, good, and poor performance? Having these standards in advance helps reduce bias and ensures you're measuring what actually matters for the role.
Share these objectives with candidates too. They should know exactly what you're evaluating. This transparency helps them focus their efforts and shows respect for their time.
Keep It Short and Respectful of Their Time
Here's a hard truth: if your design test takes more than 2-4 hours, it's too long. Period. You're not trying to get a finished product—you're trying to get a signal about their capabilities.
Think about it this way. In 2-3 hours, a skilled designer can sketch out concepts, create a few polished screens, and document their thinking. That's plenty to assess their skills. If you need more than that, you're probably asking for too much.
Set clear time expectations upfront. Tell candidates approximately how long the test should take. Better yet, explicitly tell them to stop after a certain time limit. This prevents overachievers from spending entire weekends on your test.
Consider breaking down the time allocation. For example: "Spend 30 minutes on research and sketching, 90 minutes on design execution, and 30 minutes documenting your decisions." This helps candidates manage their time and shows you've thought carefully about the scope.
Remember that every hour you ask for is an hour they're not spending on paid work, with their family, or on self-care. Respect that sacrifice by keeping your ask minimal.
Provide a Realistic, Fictional Prompt
Never, ever ask candidates to solve real problems your company is facing. This isn't just unfair—it's unethical. You're essentially getting free consulting work under the guise of evaluation.
Instead, create a fictional scenario that mirrors the type of work they'd do in the role. Make it realistic enough to be engaging but clearly separate from your actual business needs.
Good fictional prompts have enough context to be meaningful but not so much detail that candidates spend hours parsing requirements. Provide the essential information: target users, key constraints, and success metrics. Skip the 10-page brief.
Here's an example of a solid prompt: "Design a mobile app screen that helps food truck owners track their daily sales. Focus on the data entry experience. Assume the user is standing up, outdoors, and needs to record transactions quickly between customers."
Notice how this prompt is specific but contained. It gives clear constraints without being overwhelming. A designer can meaningfully respond to this in a few hours without needing extensive research.
Always Offer to Pay for Their Time
Want to instantly make your design test more fair and attractive to top talent? Pay candidates for their time. This single change transforms your test from a potential red flag into a positive signal about your company values.
Calculate payment based on a reasonable hourly rate for the role level. If you're hiring a mid-level designer who might charge $75-100 per hour freelance, offer $200-300 for a 3-hour test. It's a small investment that yields huge returns in candidate goodwill.
Payment also levels the playing field. Designers who can't afford to work for free can now participate. Parents who need to hire childcare can cover that cost. You're removing financial barriers to participation.
Some companies worry this will attract people who just want the money. In practice, the opposite happens. Payment attracts serious professionals who value their time—exactly the people you want to hire. Anyone just looking for quick cash won't make it past your evaluation anyway.
Make the payment terms clear upfront. Pay regardless of whether they move forward in the process. This isn't a mini freelance project where payment depends on approval—it's compensation for their time and effort.
What to Look For When Evaluating a Submission
You've received the submissions. Now what? Looking at the final designs is just the beginning. The real insights come from digging deeper into how candidates approached the challenge.
Clarity of Thought and Process
The best designers can explain their decisions clearly. Look for candidates who don't just show what they made, but why they made it that way. Their reasoning often matters more than the final pixels.
Check if they've documented their assumptions. Smart designers will note what they assumed about users, technical constraints, or business goals. This shows critical thinking and an understanding that design doesn't happen in a vacuum.
Pay attention to how they handled ambiguity in your brief. Did they make reasonable assumptions? Did they note where they'd need more information in a real project? Designers who can work with incomplete information are invaluable.
Look for evidence of iteration, even in a short test. Maybe they included quick sketches showing alternative approaches. Or they explained why they rejected certain ideas. This process visibility is gold for understanding how they'd work on your team.
Consider how they prioritized their time. Did they focus on the most important aspects of the challenge? Or did they get lost in details that don't matter? Time management in a test often reflects time management on the job.
Figma File Organization
Open their Figma file and look around. How a designer organizes their work tells you volumes about their professionalism and consideration for teammates. This is where technical skills become crystal clear.
Start with the basics. Are layers named clearly? Can you understand the structure without hunting through "Rectangle 157" and "Group 23"? Good naming conventions show attention to detail and empathy for collaborators.
Check their use of components and styles. Experienced designers create reusable elements even in small projects. If they built three similar buttons from scratch instead of making one component, that's a red flag for larger projects.
Look at their frame organization. Are screens laid out logically? Did they use pages effectively? Can you follow the flow without getting lost? A well-organized file is like a well-organized desk—it shows clear thinking.
Don't forget about documentation within Figma. Did they use comments to explain tricky decisions? Are there notes about interactions or edge cases? The best designers think about handoff even in a test scenario.
Auto-layout usage is another great indicator of Figma proficiency. Designers who leverage auto-layout show they understand modern, scalable design practices. It's not mandatory, but it's definitely a plus.
Follow-Up Discussion, Not Just a Grade
The submission should start a conversation, not end it. Schedule a follow-up interview focused specifically on their test work. This discussion often reveals more than the submission itself.
Ask them to walk you through their design live. Watch how they navigate their own file. Do they know where everything is? Can they explain their decisions confidently? This real-time presentation shows communication skills you can't see in a static submission.
Dig into the decisions they made. "Why did you choose this navigation pattern?" "What other options did you consider?" "What would you do differently with more time?" Their answers reveal design maturity and self-awareness.
Present hypothetical changes to see how they think on their feet. "What if we needed to add three more features here?" "How would this work on desktop?" Adaptability and systematic thinking become clear in these moments.
Ask about challenges they faced. Every design process has obstacles. Candidates who can articulate what was hard and how they overcame it show problem-solving skills and honesty. Those who claim everything was easy might not be self-aware.
Use this discussion to assess culture fit too. How do they handle feedback? Are they defensive or curious? Do they ask good questions? The conversation around their work predicts future collaboration better than the work itself.
Alternatives to Traditional Take-Home Tests
Take-home tests aren't your only option for skills assessment. These alternatives can be just as effective while addressing many of the fairness concerns. Sometimes they're even better at revealing what you need to know.
Live Collaborative Whiteboarding Session
Real-time collaboration shows you how designers actually think and work with others. Set up a 60-90 minute session where you tackle a small design problem together on a digital whiteboard like FigJam or Miro.
The key is making it truly collaborative, not a performance. You're not sitting back judging while they work alone. You're actively participating, asking questions, and even contributing ideas. This mimics real working conditions far better than a solo test.
Choose a problem you can meaningfully explore in the time available. Maybe you're sketching user flows for a simple feature. Or you're doing rapid ideation for a specific interaction. Keep it focused and achievable.
What you're really evaluating is their thinking process and communication style. Can they explain their ideas clearly? Do they build on feedback? How do they handle when you challenge an assumption? These soft skills often matter more than perfect execution.
The lower pressure of sketching and ideation can actually reveal more about design thinking than polished mockups. You see how they generate ideas, not just how they execute them. Plus, nervous candidates often perform better in conversational settings than formal tests.
In-Depth Portfolio Deep Dive
Sometimes the best test is no test at all. Instead, dedicate an entire interview session to deeply exploring their existing work. This respects their past efforts while still giving you detailed insights.
Ask them to share their screen and open actual Figma files from their portfolio projects. This isn't a casual portfolio review—it's a technical deep dive. You want to see the messy reality behind the polished case studies.
Have them walk through their design system setup. How did they structure components? What naming conventions did they use? How did they handle responsive design? Real project files reveal real working methods.
Dig into the problems they faced and how they solved them. What constraints were they working within? What would they do differently now? How did they handle feedback and revisions? These stories reveal problem-solving abilities and professional growth.
Ask about collaboration and handoff. How did they work with developers? What documentation did they provide? How did they handle design QA? Understanding their full process matters more than seeing perfect pixels.
This approach works especially well for senior designers with substantial portfolios. They've already proven they can do the work. Now you're evaluating how they did it and whether their approach fits your needs.
Paid, Small-Scale Pilot Project
For freelance or contract hires, skip the artificial test entirely. Instead, offer a small, paid pilot project. This is the most realistic way to evaluate both skills and working relationship.
Choose a real but low-stakes project. Maybe it's designing a single feature that's been on your backlog. Or creating templates for a new content type. Something meaningful but not mission-critical.
Structure it like an actual project, not a test. Provide a real brief, set up regular check-ins, and treat them like a team member. You'll learn far more about their communication style, reliability, and work quality than any test could show.
Set clear boundaries on scope and timeline. A pilot project might be 10-20 hours spread over a week or two. Pay your standard contractor rates. This investment is tiny compared to the cost of a bad hire.
What makes this approach so effective? You see everything that matters. Their communication style in Slack. How they handle feedback. Whether they meet deadlines. How they document their work. It's like a trial run of the actual working relationship.
The candidate benefits too. They get to evaluate your team, processes, and culture. If the pilot goes well, they start the role with context and confidence. If it doesn't work out, both parties learned something valuable without a huge commitment.
References
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Posted Jul 6, 2025
Should you use a skills test to hire Figma designers? Learn the pros, cons, and best practices for creating a design challenge that's fair and reveals true talent.
