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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Design Intern

💰 $30,000 - $45,000 (pro-rated for internship duration)

DesignUXUIProduct DesignInternship

🎯 Role Definition

A Design Intern is an entry-level creative professional who supports product and brand teams by producing wireframes, visual designs, and interactive prototypes; conducting basic user research and usability testing; and helping document and maintain design systems. The role focuses on translating user needs and business goals into intuitive, accessible, and visually cohesive experiences across digital touchpoints while learning best practices in UX, UI, and product design.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Design bootcamp graduate (UX/UI, Product Design)
  • Bachelor's student or recent graduate in Graphic Design, HCI, Visual Communication, Industrial Design
  • Freelance or junior-level graphic/visual design contractor

Advancement To:

  • Junior Product Designer
  • UX/UI Designer
  • Visual Designer
  • Interaction Designer

Lateral Moves:

  • Front-end Developer (with HTML/CSS/JS skills)
  • Content/UX Writer
  • Motion/Animation Designer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Collaborate with product managers and senior designers to convert user stories and business requirements into clear wireframes, user flows, and interactive prototypes that demonstrate solutions for web and mobile interfaces.
  • Create low-, mid-, and high-fidelity mockups using Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD and iterate on designs based on stakeholder and user feedback.
  • Support and execute user research activities including participant recruitment support, moderating usability sessions, synthesizing qualitative feedback, and summarizing findings into actionable insights.
  • Design and deliver pixel-perfect visual assets (icons, illustrations, UI components) consistent with brand guidelines and platform-specific constraints.
  • Assist in building and maintaining a scalable design system and component library with documented patterns, tokens (colors, spacing, typography), and usage guidelines for designers and engineers.
  • Produce responsive designs and layouts that adapt gracefully across breakpoints and device sizes, ensuring visual consistency and usability on mobile, tablet, and desktop.
  • Collaborate with engineering teams to hand off design specifications, redlines, and assets, and follow up to ensure accurate implementation and QA.
  • Conduct competitor analysis and benchmark studies to inform design decisions and highlight opportunities for differentiation and usability improvements.
  • Participate in design critiques and review sessions, presenting rationale, user-centered decisions, and trade-offs to peers and stakeholders.
  • Create interactive prototypes (InVision, Figma prototypes, Principle) to validate flows and animation timing before development handoff.
  • Apply accessibility best practices (WCAG fundamentals) to create inclusive designs, provide alt-text guidance, contrast checks, and keyboard-navigation considerations.
  • Iterate on onboarding flows, error states, and microcopy in collaboration with product and content teams to reduce friction and improve conversion metrics.
  • Produce presentation-ready deliverables and documentation to communicate design rationale, research insights, and feature scope to cross-functional teams.
  • Help track and analyze product metrics and qualitative feedback—such as task success rates and session recordings—to prioritize design improvements.
  • Support the creation of marketing assets (social creatives, email banners, landing page variants) that align with product UI and visual identity when required.
  • Manage multiple design tasks simultaneously while meeting sprint deadlines and contributing to an agile team cadence.
  • Assist in localization and internationalization efforts by designing flexible layouts that accommodate variable copy lengths and cultural differences.
  • Participate in cross-functional workshops (design sprints, empathy mapping, ideation) to generate concepts, align on user needs, and prototype potential solutions quickly.
  • Document design decisions, component usage, and iteration history in team knowledge bases to preserve institutional knowledge and expedite future work.
  • Shadow senior designers on stakeholder interviews, design reviews, and roadmap planning to accelerate professional growth and understand product strategy.
  • Support A/B test design variations by preparing testable mockups, documenting hypotheses, and reviewing test results with product analytics partners.
  • Continuously research and propose new design tools, workflows, and industry trends (motion design, AR/VR basics, voice UI) to improve team efficiency and product quality.

Secondary Functions

  • Assist in compiling and presenting weekly design metrics and user research summaries to product and marketing stakeholders.
  • Prepare and optimize assets for handoff and release, ensuring file organization, naming conventions, and export settings meet development requirements.
  • Help maintain brand asset libraries and ensure visual consistency across internal and external touchpoints.
  • Support ad-hoc creative requests from other teams (sales decks, investor materials, internal demos) while maintaining design quality and brand integrity.
  • Contribute to cross-team initiatives like accessibility reviews, onboarding improvements, and conversion rate optimization.
  • Participate in sprint planning, stand-ups, and retro meetings to align on priorities and share progress on design tasks.
  • Assist with recruiting and onboarding future interns by contributing to documentation, templates, and training materials.
  • Conduct periodic audits of product screens to identify outdated UI patterns and propose consolidation or modernization efforts.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Proficient in Figma for UI design, prototyping, component creation, and collaborative handoff.
  • Experience with Sketch or Adobe XD for creating and iterating on layouts and mockups.
  • Strong visual design skills: typography, color theory, layout composition, iconography, and brand application.
  • Ability to build interactive prototypes using Figma prototypes, InVision, Principle, or similar tools to validate flows and animations.
  • Familiarity with basic HTML and CSS to communicate effectively with engineers and understand feasibility constraints.
  • Competence in Adobe Creative Cloud (Photoshop, Illustrator) for asset creation, image editing, and vector work.
  • Practical knowledge of user research methods: usability testing, surveys, interviews, card sorting, and affinity mapping.
  • Understanding of responsive and adaptive design principles for mobile-first interfaces.
  • Experience applying accessibility guidelines (WCAG) to ensure inclusive product experiences, including contrast checking and semantic considerations.
  • Familiarity with design systems, component libraries, and token-based styling to build consistent UI patterns.
  • Experience with version control for design files, design handoff workflows, and developer collaboration tools (Zeplin, Abstract, Figma Inspect).
  • Basic analytics literacy: ability to interpret product metrics (CTR, conversion, task success) to inform design decisions.
  • Motion and interaction design basics (CSS transitions, simple micro-interactions, timing) to enhance user delight.

Soft Skills

  • Strong communication skills with the ability to articulate design decisions and present to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Empathy and user-first mindset: ability to listen, synthesize user feedback, and advocate for customer needs.
  • Collaborative team player who thrives in cross-functional environments with product managers, engineers, and researchers.
  • Curiosity and willingness to learn new tools, methodologies, and industry best practices quickly.
  • Critical thinking and problem-solving oriented toward measurable outcomes and user impact.
  • Attention to detail and a strong aesthetic sense for creating polished and consistent interfaces.
  • Time management and prioritization skills to balance multiple assignments in a fast-paced sprint schedule.
  • Receptive to feedback with the ability to iterate quickly and incorporate constructive critique into work.
  • Initiative and self-motivation to seek responsibilities, ask good questions, and own small end-to-end design tasks.
  • Presentation and storytelling skills to craft user-centered narratives that justify design choices and roadmaps.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Currently enrolled in or recently graduated from a Bachelor's program in Design, Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Graphic Design, Visual Communication, Industrial Design, or related fields.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Product Design, HCI, Interaction Design, Graphic Design, or a related discipline.
  • Completion of accredited UX/UI bootcamps or relevant certification programs is a plus.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
  • Graphic Design / Visual Communication
  • Industrial Design / Product Design
  • Interaction Design / Information Architecture
  • Web Design / Multimedia Design

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 0 to 2 years of practical experience; internships, academic projects, bootcamp projects, freelance work, or personal portfolio pieces acceptable.

Preferred:

  • 1+ prior internship or freelance project demonstrating applied UX/UI workflows, a strong portfolio with 3+ case studies showing process (research → ideation → prototyping → validation), and familiarity with modern design tools and collaborative product development.
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