Project
Interview Experience
service name
UIUX Design
Company
Talview
01.
The Problem
In the world of remote hiring, the stakes have never been higher. Companies are scaling fast, remote candidates are everywhere, and technical interviews have moved online.
But the tools? – They’re stitched together.
Slack for team pings. Google Meet for interviews. VS Code Live Share. A spreadsheet to track red flags.
Interviewers are expected to wear five hats at once.
Meet Praveen
“By the time I switch tabs to log a concern, I’ve already missed what the candidate did next.”
Praveen is a seasoned senior developer.
He’s been interviewing for over 3 years, leading hiring efforts in the company.
But even with his experience, he constantly battles three invisible enemies:
Cognitive overload – Jumping between browser tabs, noting timestamps, remembering what just happened.
Delayed detection – Candidate switches tabs. Praveen notices too late. The moment is gone.
Frustration – He wants to focus on the candidate’s thinking, not hunt for malpractice.
The Explosion Point
During one key interview, a candidate is screen-sharing, everything looks fine.
But something feels off.
Praveen later finds out, the candidate was getting code suggestions from ChatGPT on a second monitor.
“I felt cheated. Not just because they used AI, but because I didn’t even know it happened until much later. It made me question the whole process.”
This incident triggered a company-wide relook at how interviews were conducted.
They didn’t want to become a surveillance platform.
They wanted to build a system that empowers fairness without turning interviewers into cops.
Our Insight
We realized this isn’t just about features.
It’s about giving back control to the interviewer, and confidence to the hiring manager, while creating a space where the candidate feels respected, not watched.
So we asked:
“Can we design a real-time interview room that behaves like a co-pilot – watching, noting, helping – but never shouting over the pilot?”
02.
The Characters + The Journey
Crafting Empathy and Understanding the Real Drama
Praveen – The Interviewer
Praveen loves logic. He’s great at spotting edge cases in code and coaching junior developers. But he’s not a machine. During interviews, he wants to be fully present, not distracted by pinging tabs or second-guessing what a tab-switch might mean.
He wants:
Clarity: “Is the candidate focused or multitasking?”
Memory: “What happened at 14:23 again?”
Confidence: “Can I justify my feedback to HR if challenged?”
Rhea – The Hiring Manager
Rhea doesn’t sit in interviews. She reads the reports. She cross-checks flags. She defends hiring decisions. Her reputation is on the line with every hire.
She wants:
Evidence: “Can I trust this candidate’s performance was legit?”
Context: “Why was this person flagged?”
Consistency: “Are interviewers evaluating with parity?”
The Journey – From Chaos to Clarity
Observing the Field
We ran contextual inquiries by watching 3 actual interviews.
Each one was a mess of:
- Slack messages mid-interview
- Missed malpractice moments
- Interviewers scribbling timecodes on Notepad
- And one common post-call sigh:
“I hope I didn’t miss anything important.”
Synthesizing Insights
We framed these tensions using a journey map with emotional gradients:
Building the Script
With these insights, we began designing not a UI, but a scripted experience:
- A room that notices, records, and supports, but never shouts.
- Alerts that whisper in – instead of interrupting.
- A timeline that replays moments like chapters in a novel.
- Secondary camera views for the interviewer.
- A clear, consistent log for hiring managers to trust outcomes.
We weren’t just designing an interview tool. We were designing a story space where the main characters could act with confidence, be seen clearly, and be judged fairly.
Stories
“The Missed Moment” – Praveen’s Tab Switch
“I saw the candidate pause and glance sideways. I felt something was up. I switched to the monitoring tab, but by the time it loaded… the screen was back to normal.”
Praveen later checked the logs, there was a tab switch.
But without a timestamp or context, it was hard to prove.
That moment shaped our decision to introduce:
Real-time passive alerts with subtle timestamp logging
A “timeline view” so moments can be reviewed like a DVR recording
Non-intrusive overlays that don’t force the interviewer to leave their primary view
“The Vibe Was Off” – Rhea’s Audit
“Three interviewers flagged the same person, but gave completely different reasons. One said ‘AI suspicion’, another said ‘lack of eye contact’. I couldn’t trace what actually happened.”
This inconsistency led us to rethink how insights were shared with hiring managers.
It shaped these features:
Auto-tagging events: “Suspicious window switch”, “Long idle period”, “Eyes off-screen”
A timeline feed with visual snapshots of when each flag was triggered
Summary cards with exact timestamps and alert types but no ambiguity
03.
The Design – Building the Interview Room
From Chaos to Clarity: The UX Blueprint
Our approach wasn’t to add features.
It was to reduce friction and elevate awareness – designing an experience that fades into the background until it’s needed.
So we sketched the idea of an “interview room”, a system that quietly supports without taking over.
Goal 1: Minimize Cognitive Overload for Interviewers
Problem: Interviewers constantly switched between IDE, notes, video feed, and monitoring tools.
Design Solution: A Unified View – a modular layout with plug-and-play panels.
Key Elements:
- Primary Code Editor: Clean, distraction-free, with candidate annotations
- Secondary Camera Mini-View: Always-on-top, only visible to the interviewer
- Gentle Popups: Fade-in alerts with context (“Candidate opened a new tab”)
Result: Interviewers stayed in one window. Their focus remained on the candidate, not the UI.
Goal 2: Create an Ethical Alert System
Problem: Interviewers felt uneasy flagging candidates without evidence.
Candidates felt like they were being watched by a robot.
Design Solution: Narrative-based Alert Timeline
Key Elements:
- Auto-generated flags (Tab switch, eye tracking, idle time)
- Timestamped highlights
- Snapshots only when anomaly is detected
We used storytelling language for alerts:
- “Candidate looked away for 8s during a coding question”
- “Unusual click pattern – opened multiple tabs quickly”
This gave Rhea (Hiring Manager) context, not just logs.
Goal 3: Boost Trust Without Sacrificing Comfort
Problem: Candidates were unsure what was being tracked, which increased anxiety.
Design Solution: Transparent, consent-based onboarding.
Key Elements:
- Pre-interview Walkthrough: “Here’s what’s visible to the interviewer”
- Toggle Consent for webcam/audio monitoring
This calmed nerves and made the system feel respectful.
Goal 4: Create a Replayable Interview Story
Problem: Post-interview reviews were subjective. Flags lacked visual context.
Design Solution: Interview Timeline Playback
Key Features:
- Seekable timeline with event markers
- Threaded annotations by the interviewer
- Collapsible flag summaries with screenshots & audio cues
It wasn’t just a recording – it was an interactive storybook of the interview.
Stakeholder Stories
Product Manager (Tarun KD)
Narrative Arc: Focused on reducing feature complexity and increasing adoption across teams.
“We initially scoped this as just a flagging tool. But what we ended up with was a narrative timeline. Something that made every flag feel human, contextual, and useful.”
Tarun noticed that interviewers weren’t using half the existing features. In the new design, adoption jumped because everything was embedded in their natural workflow.
“It’s not just usable now, it’s invisible in the best way.”
CSM Team (Customer Success)
Narrative Arc: Spends hours troubleshooting with users; they needed clarity and self-service visibility.
“The timeline playback cut our support time in half. Clients don’t ask ‘what happened?’ anymore, they just see it.”
One CSM mentioned a previously frustrated customer who, after the new rollout, messaged:
“This is so clean I feel like I’m watching Netflix, not investigating fraud.”
04.
The Resolution: What Changed?
Outcomes for the Business
The Human Impact
Meet Praveen again
“I’m not afraid of missing anything now. I can review the timeline and feel confident.”
With the new platform updates, his experience has improved significantly:
Increased Focus – The new alert system automatically flags concerns, allowing Praveen to focus on the conversation without distractions.
Real-Time Detection – Alerts are now instant, so Praveen never misses a critical moment during interviews.
Streamlined Experience – Reduced cognitive overload with fewer tab switches, enabling Praveen to assess candidates more effectively.
Collaborations & Tradeoffs
I worked closely with:
PMs to define modular components for future expansion.
CSMs to reduce common support escalations through better UI copy and onboarding.
CTO to ensure all changes stayed within current tech limits.
CEO to shape the demo narrative for stakeholders.
I encountered pushback, especially around showing alerts to candidates. I reframed the feature as transparency over surveillance positioning it as an advantage, not a risk. That pitch helped win buy-in from leadership.
Reflections & What I’d Do Differently
What Worked
- Designing a narrative timeline instead of a table of logs
- Integrating alerts into existing visual hierarchy (instead of separate popups)
- Writing microcopy with empathy, not authority.
What Could Be Better
- Earlier usability testing with candidates could have shaped the consent screen faster
- First version overloaded timeline with too many tags; simplifying helped focus
Next Steps
- A/B test alert animation speeds
- Explore heatmap view for summarizing long interviews
05.
Acknowledgment
Rock-solid team that made this possible: