U2xAI
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Designing for Uncertainty & Trust

Designing for failure and graceful degradation Interview Questions

22 questions. All 22 carry a written answer.

  1. #1What should happen in the UI when the model returns nothing usable?CaseFoundational
  2. #2Design the fallback experience for an AI feature when the provider is down.CaseIntermediate
  3. #3Explain the difference between failing loudly and failing silently, and which you prefer.ConceptIntermediate
  4. #4How do you design a feature that degrades to a non-AI version rather than breaking?CaseAdvanced
  5. #5Describe three failure modes to design for before launch.ConceptIntermediate
  6. #6What error message would you write for a model timeout, and what would you avoid saying?Artifact critiqueIntermediate
  7. #7How should the product behave when the model produces output that fails a safety filter?CaseAdvanced
  8. #8Design the recovery path for a user whose agent took a wrong action.CaseAdvanced
  9. #9Explain the concept of a blast radius for an AI feature and how design limits it.ConceptAdvanced
  10. #10What is the right undo experience for AI-generated changes?CaseIntermediate
  11. #11Critique an error state that says something went wrong, please try again.Artifact critiqueFoundational
  12. #12How do you design for the case where the model is confidently wrong?CaseAdvanced
  13. #13Describe the escalation path from AI to human and its design requirements.CaseIntermediate
  14. #14What should a rate-limited user see, and how do you avoid making it feel punitive?CaseIntermediate
  15. #15Explain how to design a kill switch that product can operate without an engineer.ConceptAdvanced
  16. #16How do you preserve user work when an AI operation fails midway?CaseAdvanced
  17. #17Design the experience for a partial result rather than a failure.CaseAdvanced
  18. #18What does graceful degradation look like for a multi-step agent?ConceptAdvanced
  19. #19How would you handle a failure that only affects a subset of languages or regions?CaseAdvanced
  20. #20Describe the difference between a retry that helps and a retry that just costs money.ConceptIntermediate
  21. #21What failure telemetry does design need in order to improve the experience?ConceptIntermediate
  22. #22Walk me through the failure states you would design for a feature I name.InterviewAdvanced