I came across Artiom Dashinsky‘s book Solving Product Design Exercises sometime last year when searching for UX exercises and challenges to practice with.
This book teaches you how to design and present solutions to design exercises that are often given out to candidates who are interviewing for a product/UX design job.
It sells for $33.92 on Amazon in paperback and $24 on the book’s website for a digital copy. I purchased the kindle version out of curiosity and here’s what I think.
What I love about this book
Practical and actionable interview tips
I’ve gone to quite a few job interviews through my design career as well as being on the hiring end, and I can tell you that the tips and advice listed in this book are pretty right on, and will actually help you get through a real life design interview process.
A design framework that helps you solve design exercises step-by-step
Artiom introduces a flexible design framework based on the 5W1H research method in the book. It help you quickly focus in on the target audience and their problem at hand so you can
30+ design exercises to try your hands on
Practice makes better. You can use the 30+ design exercises included in the book to get better and faster at solving design exercises.
What I wish it had
A section on product thinking
The book mentions the importance of product thinking for designers, but it didn’t really explain what it is and how to learn about it. Granted this topic would probably take several books, I still wish that there can be some more information on that so it’s more than a buzzword.
Less design elitism
The book includes a lot of quotes and interviews from accomplished designers working at famous tech companies such as Facebook, Google or GitHub. Their advice is definitely helpful, but I feel that it gives off a sense of design elitism and paints a stereotypical picture of what a successful design career looks like.
In my opinion, some of the most challenging and interesting design work exist in emerging startups, traditional enterprises
Verdict: yes!
Yes, I think it’s worth the price.
It has both up-to-date resources and time-tested design framework so that every time you find yourself back on the job market you can consult it again and again.
And if you get even one offer because of this book, it more than pays for itself.
More UX challenges for you to practice with
For more design exercises and UX challenges, check out UX Challenge which I created to help you level up your design skills and build your UX portfolio.
I hope my review helps you make a decision about this book!