Top 100 Product Sense Questions

Top 100 Product Sense Questions
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Let's dive into the top 100 product sense questions now!
1. Design a meditation app.
Ask Follow up Questions
Is this for specific type of user or open?
Do we have any past research that has been done?
Do we have an idea of company and user goals?
Do we have metrics of success?
Are there any existing constraints?
**Why | **5 min
Why is this product or feature important?
How does this product benefit customers?
What business opportunities does it create?
What is our hypothesis?
What are our company goals?
**Who | **3 min
Who are the different types of users?
What are some assumptions we have about their behavior?
How does this persona measure success? What motivates them
What are our user goals?
What are our user needs?
What are their pain points?
**What | **5 min
What type of product? (Physical, digital, smart watch, phone, tablet, desktop
Type of interface - graphic, audio/voice, AR/VR etc.
Use this format
Build (type of product) for (user) that would do (when and where) to (why)
e) build a smartwatch app that would take advantage of haptic technology
and communicate with the user over tactile feedback on the wrist
**Prioritization | **3 min
Choose four of these ideas and place on an impact x effort scale
Impact vs. Effort Matrix Rank ideas on matrix **Solve | **25 min
Map out the customer’s journey to get a picture of what interaction your
product needs to support
Define tasks - make a list of tasks the customer needs to complete to use
your product successfully
Sketch out ideas - 4 to 6 sketches
How
How would we know that the solution was successful
Task success rate
Task completion time
Engagement
Retention
Conversion
User Acquisition
2. How would you improve Spotify as a podcast app?
Clarifying questions
Do we want to limit ourselves to audio podcasts or should I consider video
podcasts as well?
Assuming that the interviewer asks to stay focused on audio podcasts.
Is there a particular type of podcast listening experience I should focus on
such as a solo-host podcast, an interview format podcast etc?
Assuming that the interviewer leaves it up to me to decide. I will decide to
continue & circle back later on this question and see if it impacts my
direction. At this point, I will continue as is.
Assumptions
I will consider all the improvements as part of the Spotify app itself & not have
a different app dedicated to podcasts.
As stated, I will be doing all the thinking from a user's pain point for podcasts
- Spotify Music part will continue its own set of experiments as per their
priority.
Users
There are primarily two categories of users:
Podcast consumers - Users who listen to their favourite podcasts and
discover new ones.
Podcast creators - Users who create their podcast, host it on a product and
then publish it on Spotify.
User prioritisation
Between these two categories of users, I would like to focus on podcast
consumers.
If we improve the experience for podcast consumers, it will have a bigger
impact on Spotify's growth.
Also, if users are enjoying their podcast experience on Spotify, the creators
will publish their content on the platform to get a reach.
Pain points
In this section, we will talk about the pain points of podcast consumers on the
Spotify app. Overall, I will divide the experience of a podcast consumer broadly
into 3 categories:
1. Podcast Discovery - Finding out new & interesting podcast content 1.
2. Engagement - Listening in to their fav podcasts & tuning in to hear the latest
episodes
3. Sharing - Users love to share content with their network when they love
something
Between these 3 broad categories, I would like to focus on aspects of Podcast
Discovery and Engagement and how this experience can be improved for the
users. The rationale behind this is:
1. Sharing will primarily happen outside Spotify as users would like to share the
content of their liking where they already have a network - such as TikTok or
Instagram.
2. Spotify already has an established user base - so the focus will be on
retaining these users. Working on aspects of content sharing will bring in
more users which isn't a priority for Spotify.
At this point -> I would love to revisit one of my clarifying questions and for the
remaining part of the question, I will consider that we are focusing on an interview
format question (a host & a guest) podcast setup.
Pain points in Podcast Discovery:
1. It takes a long time for users to figure out the podcast of their choice from
Spotify's recommended podcasts. This is primarily due to the run time of the
podcast - if we compare this to the music experience, users can listen to the
song within 2-3 mins and make up their minds. The podcast is a bigger
commitment from the user's perspective.
Pain points in Engagement:
1. Users aren't aware of the info related to the next podcast episode - who
would be the guest, what will be the topic etc.
2. Users aren't able to establish a personal connection with the host of the
podcast & it becomes a very unidirectional relationship.
Ideas
Thinking of ideas to address users' pain points, I will again divide them into two
categories - one for Podcast Discovery and another for Engagement.
Ideas for Product Discovery:
1. A way to discover the content based on short audio snippets of the most
interesting parts of the podcast - this can be a mix of the interesting
questions asked by the host, some insightful answers by the guest or
recommendation by the guest on why they loved this featuring on this
podcast - this quickly shows the best version of the podcasts to the users
and user can make their decisions.
Ideas for Engagement:
1. A dedicated section in the podcast info page talks about the upcoming
episodes, which guests will they be featuring, a short profile on the guests
and the topic of discussion.
2. Users would love to share their inputs in the way their favourite podcast
shapes up --> users can submit their questions which the host can pick to
ask in the next episode, and users can give their suggestions on the next
guest or a new topic of discussion etc. This would really engage the user and
will help the users in establishing a much closer connection with their
favourite podcasts.
1. Here, we will have to work with the team of creators for them to take this
into consideration while they work on their next podcast episode. This will
also make an engaging community for the creator as well.
Vision
The vision I have for the podcast experience on Spotify is to make it the most
interactive podcast experience for the users.
Feature & metrics
1. A feed inspired by the reels/shorts interaction - short audio snippets of the
best section of the podcasts where users can quickly browse through - if a
user likes a clip from a particular podcast, they should be able to listen in to a
few more clips from the podcast. If a user doesn't like a clip, they can skip to
the next clip which will be by another creator.
1. I would also like to give an option to users to directly navigate to a
particular episode if a user really liked a right away and wants to start
listening to the entire episode.
2. Metrics for this feature -> (a) growth of the number of users month-on-
month who listened to a new episode of a podcast after discovering from
the feed (b) growth of the number of users month-on-month who
listened to more than one episode of a podcast after discovering from the
feed
3. Section of users to see the upcoming info of the podcast episodes -> (a)
option for users to submit their questions for the next guest (b) option for
users to suggest a new guest for their podcast
1. Metrics for this feature -> (a) % of users who submitted their questions
out of users who have listened to more than 2 episodes of that podcast
GTM & rollout
1. As discussed above, I will first roll this out to users who primarily consume the
conversational podcast (a host & a guest).
2. In terms of prioritisation, I will first make the engagement-related feature live
for these users by enabling them to engage with the podcast creator and
actively give suggestions for the upcoming episodes and then roll out the
discovery feature (the rationale being the effort estimate for each feature).
Pitfalls
1. I have primarily considered interview-styled podcasts to increase
engagement. It might be difficult to engage users in solo podcasts and I
would like to work with the podcast creators as well to increase their
engagement with their audience.
3. Should Uber launch an "Uber for Kids" service? If so, how would you
design it?
Clarifying Qs:
1. Uber PM
2. Business goals - revenue, user engagement
3. Known customer needs
4. Any trigger or prompt - post covid, things are getting back to normal.
Observing demand for kids to travel alone within the city from point A to B
5. Geo - US
Uber mission -- Create opportunity through movement
Uber strengths -
1. Brand value
2. Mobile tech
3. GPC tracking
4. Real-time traffic and routing algos
5. Fleet of drivers
Why we need this app for kids: Why would kids want to travel alone?
1. Living with busy professional parents
2. Living with single parents
3. Living with guardians
4. Living with grandparents
5. Living with parents without any vehicle
6. Kids have to go to different after school classes alone
7. Kids have to go to friends place or library after school alone
8. Kids have to commute between school and home alone
9. Kids have to go for sports practices alone
Product alignment / Why having Uber for kids is good idea of uber? All the above
scenarios are possible and this product aligns with Uber mission to create
opportunity for above mentioned parents and kids through movement
Users
1. Primary users
1. Kids
1. Elementary
2. Middle
3. High
6. Secondary users/customers 2. Parents
Prioritization: Total Addressable Market - Middle schoolers and high schoolers
because they are usually enrolled in more classes after school, and parents
hesitate sending them alone; elementary kids do not have as many classes
However, kids would not care if they are using uber kids app or uber regular app.
The real user needs for this app are derived from the parents' concerns of sending
their kids alone in Uber. So we will target parents needs while designing this Uber
app for kids
Users Needs / Pain points:
Kids enter correct destination while booking the ride
Kids enter in the correct car
Parents able to track the route
Make sure kid is safe in the car
Make sure kid is dropped at the right location
Make sure kid has reached the destination safely
Make sure kid has not left anything behind in the car
Prioritization: Severity Frequency Based on the above parameters, I prioritize above
pain points in bold
Solutions and trade-offs:
3. Parental control: Parents can control/monitor kids app from their Uber app
1. Parents book the ride for kids from parents app when kids is travelling
alone, and kids can see the booked ride and track the driver and car
2. OR kids can book the ride from their app, but parents can get the alert
with destination details and driver details
Trade-off: if parents are busy to both book the ride or check the notification
2.Car scanner - Kids can use car scanner feature in kids app to scan the car and
license plate to confirm it is the correct car (instead of manually reading the license
plate)
3.Drive face scanner - Kids can scan driver's face to make sure he/she is the
authorized Uber driver before entering the car
4. "This is right car" confirmation feature
When kids approach the car, the kids uber app matches the kid's mobile GPS
location and car's GPS location and if they are the same, notify kids that "this is the
right car". Then only kids will enter the car. Same notification would be sent to the
parent's app.
Trade-off: If there are two cars side-by-side at the same GPS location and kids get
into the wrong car
5.Verified drivers:
When booking is made for kids (either from parents app or kids app), Uber will
route their best and more verified drivers for kids ride
Trade-off: even verified drivers are not 100% safe
6.Real time tracking
Parents can real time track the car GPS as well as kids mobile GPS throughout the
ride, so make sure kid is in the car
7.Voice enabled Panic feature 1. Uber kids app have voice-enabled panic feature to
notify parents 1. Trade-off: when in trouble, Kids may be scared and may not able
to speak or act to activate the panic feature
8.Self-detected panic feature 1. Uber kids app could also self-detect any trouble
with the kid and automatically makes a panic call to parents
Prioritization
3. Level of Effort
4. Impact
Based on the above parameters, I prioritize the above Solutions in bold for kids
uber app. These solve all the pain points we prioritized above
Metrics
Engagement
# of kids downloaded the kids app in last 28 days
#of parents updated their app to activate kids features in last 28 days
# of parents linked their uber profile with kids profile in last 28 days
# of parents who booked ride for their kids in last 28 days
# of user opted for "this is right car" feature
Counter metrics:
# of kids deleted this app in last 28 days
# of parents deactivated kids features from their app in last 28 days
4. You are a Google PM in charge of the next Android keynote product
announcement in 3 years. What would you build?
If I were a Google PM in charge of the next Android keynote product
announcement in 3 years, I would build the following:
A more secure and privacy-focused Android platform.
This is because security and privacy are becoming increasingly important to users.
In the past few years, we have seen a number of high-profile data breaches, and
users are becoming more aware of the risks of having their personal information
online. A more secure and privacy-focused Android platform would help to address
these concerns and give users peace of mind.
A more powerful and versatile Android runtime.
This is because users are demanding more from their mobile devices. They want to
be able to use their devices for gaming, productivity, and other demanding tasks. A
more powerful and versatile Android runtime would allow developers to create
more complex and demanding apps, while also making Android more responsive
and efficient for everyday use.
A more seamless and integrated experience across devices.
This is because users are increasingly using multiple devices. They want to be able
to seamlessly share files, apps, and notifications across their devices. A more
seamless and integrated experience across devices would make it easier for users
to use their devices together and would help them to be more productive.
A more inclusive and accessible Android platform.
This is because Android is used by people all over the world, including people with
disabilities. A more inclusive and accessible Android platform would make it easier
for people with disabilities to use their devices and would help them to participate
in the digital world. I believe that these features would make Android the most
secure, powerful, versatile, and inclusive mobile platform in the world. They would
also help to ensure that Android remains the leading mobile platform for years to
come. Here are some specific reasons why I would build these features:
Security and privacy: Security and privacy are important to users because
they want to feel safe when they use their devices. A more secure and
privacy-focused Android platform would help to address these concerns and
give users peace of mind.
Power and versatility: Users are demanding more from their mobile devices,
so a more powerful and versatile Android runtime would allow them to use
their devices for more demanding tasks. This would make Android more
appealing to users and would help to ensure that it remains the leading
mobile platform.
Seamlessness and integration: Users are increasingly using multiple devices,
so a more seamless and integrated experience across devices would make it
easier for them to use their devices together. This would make Android more
convenient for users and would help them to be more productive.
Inclusion and accessibility: Android is used by people all over the world,
including people with disabilities. A more inclusive and accessible Android
platform would make it easier for people with disabilities to use their devices
and would help them to participate in the digital world. This would make
Android more appealing to a wider range of users and would help to ensure
that it remains the leading mobile platform.
I believe that these features would make Android the most secure, powerful,
versatile, and inclusive mobile platform in the world. They would also help to
ensure that Android remains the leading mobile platform for years to come.
5. How would you improve Instagram Stories?

IG already has a large user base. So the team would not need to look into acquire
more people but enable new feature(s) for users to be more excited (which
eventually would result in more people coming back more often).
Facebook, as a company, strives to connect more people and help them have an
amazing experience through interactions with their friends. This is the basic
principle on which FB's various apps work on. So I would aim to build this feature
with the overall vision of the company to connect users and enable them to be
excited when the use our app/feature.
Overall structure:
3. Discuss customer segments and what are some of these people looking for in
a new feature (pain points)
4. Prioritize one of these segments and/or pain point
5. Brainstorm solutions and pick one
6. Talk about how we could design the MVP
7. Go-to-market strategy
8. Success metrics
Now I would like to focus on some of the customer segments that I see could
potentially use this new feature. Broadly speaking, they can be divided into 2
categories:
3. Content creators - people that are highly active on the platform and create
stories at least 2-5 times per week. They want to think of new ways to
impress their friends and find inspiration from other popular stories
4. Content consumers - people that are not actively creating stories but
consume a whole lot (this may probably be the higher of the 2 cust. segments
in terms of % MAU). These guys are bored of seeing the same kind of stories
everyday and would soon lose interest if they didnt't see something new.
I would choose first cust. segm. (Content creators) to work with. Although the
second user segment is appealing in terms of potentially a higher user base, I think
if we can build features with having creators in mind, the success of the feature
would lead to virality which would eventually help the stickiness of the consumers
to the platform. Besides, building new exciting features for a company like IG gives
us an opportunity to innovate and try something new.
Solutions:
3. Based on your current location, the user gets a mash-up of some of the
popular stories from around that same location from other users. Ex: when
you are the Grand Canyon, you could get a mash up of the top 10 popular
stories in the last 2 months from users who visited the Grand Canyon as well.
The algo should be able to use an API that identifies the Grand Canyon
picture in the background and could perhaps point to which location at the
Grand Canyon that picture was taken at. This could be a quick 10-15 second
mash up video.
4. Use Machine Learning to edit your stories. A lot of people spend too much
time on editing/creating memes out of their stories. Use ML to make that
quicker for the user. ML would understand what the user typically likes to
post as a story (from simple pics with text edits to quick meme stories). Use
the existing pics/videos on the user's phone to suggest quick pic edits or
your funny pet dog video.
5. AR feature - in the times of the pandemic, we could create a 'Wish I was
there' feature. Use existing/popular pics of a destination and superimpose the
person's image (from past images/posts) to create a new story. For example, I
wanted to be in the Mexico this fall, but since I cannot go due to all the
restrictions and the situation, I could post a story of how I could be lying on a
beach sipping some margaritas on a party cruise, etc.
While I like the solutions above I would like us to focus on the AR feature more.
Tradeoffs:
The mash-up story seems like a great idea for creators to get some inspiration and
create some great content themselves. However, we would need to
comprehensively test the feature to make sure it is working appropriately. For
example, we could run into problems such as the API not being able to accurately
distinguish between similar looking places (like beaches, bars/restaurants, etc.).
This could lead to a lot of confusion. Also, not every user would have their GPS on
at all times, so that we can find out where exactly the user may be exactly (I for one
don't do it!).
Using to ML to edit stories also seems a little complex. One of the key things is to
help the user understand the feature better. Also, the ML can get very complex for
us to accurately develop, then test and ship the right feature in time. This could
take a long time. Also, there may be some privacy issues that people may be
concerned about - like IG trying to look into your personal gallery of pics/videos to
suggest ready-made stories. Users could be turned off by this.
I like the AR idea a lot. I think it would be a fun way for people to bring out their
creativity out. Recently, FB launched the avatar option where users can post their
avatar to their friends. The way I am seeing this feature is in two-folds:
3. You could your avatars on publicly available pics of a beach in the Bahamas
riding a unicorn
4. In order to make it even more convenient the user could allow IG to use their
past images to be superimposed on to this new image
5. You could take a pic of your self lying on the floor and IG could superimpose
(photoshop in a way) your image to make it look like you are on a beach with
the caption "Chilling on a beach(wish vs. reality)". Maybe you could add the
actual image too! Would be fun and creative.
I know there are a few solutions within the same solution that I just thought of but I
wanted to bring out these ideas as well. I really like the avatar idea. We already
have this tech and could use this to add a bit of fun to stories. This would tie up
nicely with the overall vision of engaging users with new features and also give
another reason for our other customer segments to come back more to see what
their friends are "wishing" for.
I could see us have celebrities/influencers promote this feature as well. Like
athletes "wishing" they could be on the soccer field playing right now but instead
they are playing the PlayStation.
Success metrics would be split in terms of the lifecycle of the product and also tied
with overall business goals:
3. Acquisition - # of people using the feature daily/weekly/monthly (DAU, WAU,
MAU), # of users watching these stories, are the users that watch these
stories also converting?
4. Engagement - How many times on average are people using the
feature/creating stories per day/week/month? Has the overall engagement of
adopters increased since first using this feature?
5. Retention - How often are users coming back to create/see stories
daily/weekly/monthly? Has retention increased because of this feature?
6. How do you consider your impact on the world as a product
designer?
In my time as a product designer, I’ve seen a transition of growth from something
that is visually appealing to what is actually useful / functional / scalable. I think as
designers, we are afraid to let things go such as the visual fidelity of design and
how something could be useful but not necessarily have the flash of a more
consumer based product. I think when we learn to let that go, we can see the scale
of our impact and that we aren’t just people who make something look good/pretty
but that we have the power to change people’s lives. Digital products have huge
opportunities that have surfaced from the internet and app stores and that has
given us so much scale. In these past 5-10 years, we have begun to design and
create products that are being used by millions / billions of people. As product
designers our ability to create / enforce change isn’t always something we think
about.
Moving to this mindset creates the need for an even larger set of skills. It requires
us to be more strategic, think about numerous types of audiences as well as better
define the impact of our projects - much of which we find ourselves in
conversations that are about design itself when the focus would be much wider on
the actual impact it has in the world / society.
7. Design a kayak rental service.

**Why | **5 min
**Who | **3 min
**What | **5 min
Use this format
How
How would we know that the solution was successfulTask success rate Task
completion time Engagement Retention Conversion User Acquisition User
Sentiment
Ways to test Lab usability testing - used when we have in depth information on
how real users interact with your product and what issues they face (reasoning
behind user behavior) Unmoderated usability testing- used when you need to
obtain a large sample to prove critical findings from your initial moderated research
- need to validate hypothesis on large segment of users Contextual inquiry -
interview / observation method that helps product teams obtain information about
the user experience from real users, users are asked a set of questions about their
experience with a product and then observed and questioned while they work in
their own environments - used to get rich information about users, their
workspace, personal preference and habits Phone interview** **- used to collect
feedback from test participants at a global scale Card sorting - used when you
want to optimize a product’s information architecture prior to design which allows
you to make more data - informed decisions Session Recording - used to help
understand major problems that users will face when they interact with your
product, helps to understand what content / features are the most interesting for
users as well as what interaction problems users face while they interact with your
product Pilot - used to test the system of a solution. A small step from launch
solution to the public and gives idea whether solution would work in the long term
8. Design a product for drivers driving in rush hour.

3. Clarification
Define rush hour?
hours leading up to the work day 8-10am and after the work day 5-7pm
Are we focused on specific types of drivers?
American commuters. Private drivers going to and from work
What is Google's goal?
Increase engagement with google services
Roadmap for interviewer: User--> Pain Points-->Solution--> Vision-->Features--
>Tradeoffs
User
American commuters. Private drivers going to and from work
Can't be too distracted even during rush hour
may have passengers who might be children
Segments
Professional commuting to and from work
Parent commuting to and from child's school
Unlucky driver who chose to run errands at the wrong time of the day
My Choice: Professional commuting to and from work
Pain points
3. Productivity: Perhaps the driver is a professional who would like to get started
reading emails before reaching the office. Perhaps the driver is on their way
to the grocery store and would like to start a grocery list while stuck in traffic.
Perhaps the driver is late and needs alternative routes or wants to find the
fastest moving lane
4. Entertainment: Sitting in traffic can be boring. Perhaps the driver would like to
be entertained with news, music, etc.
5. Logistics/travel: Perhaps the driver wants information about the commute--
fastest lane, cause of traffic, alternative routes, etc.
My Choice: I think we should focus on making the commute as productive as
possible for the professional who is on their way to work.
Solutions
Voice: Google assistant integration that allows the driver to access the google
assistant feature. Drivers can perform Google searches, create to-do lists,
and check their email.
Context-aware AI: Smart suggestions: Google can integrate the driver's email
and suggest tasks based on estimated time in traffic and estimated time to
complete a task (e.g. rehearse speaking points).
Context-aware AR: Safe Augmented Reality: Google and visualize relevant
data (tasks, messages, news, etc.) to the windshield of the driver's car.
My Choice: Context-aware AI: The rush hour-aware google integration could put
the driver at ease by suggesting ways to take advantage of the time spent in
traffic. The integration would leverage the data that google has about the individual
and the traffic situation.
Vision
Since Google wants to organize the world's information and make it easily
available, I think that for this application, the driver should be able to access
google with their hands behind the wheel.
Features
3. Google assistant (via google maps) suggests emails to listen to based on
projected time in traffic
4. Google suggests changes to calendar based on traffic
Pitfalls
may need to provide a broader feature set to make the product compelling
GTM
Pre-launch
Software development: The product could also be launched as a feature
for google maps or android for the car
Hardware development: Google could release car-friendly versions of the
google car
Partnership + SW dev: The product could be released as a new google-
integrated car partnership with an attractive car brand.
During
Partnerships
Marketing to target drivers--billboards, radio ads, etc.
Post-launch
track time spent interacting with the feature (Engagement)
if product doesn't increase engagement
provide more social/fun features
9. How would you build a Facebook product for blood donation?
Clarifying questions:
· Is there a specific scenario we are building before? Example: urgent need for a
specific type of blood vs building up blood banks proactively. You decide
· This would be for mobile/web and integrate into the existing facebook product?
Yes
Ok before we get started I wanted to discuss the facebook mission: to give people
the power to build community and bring the world closer together.
I can see how blood donation fits directly into this, enabling blood donation helps
further drive engagement around so called weaker ties: shared interests and
groups. It leverages the vast network of facebook to create a social good which is
both good for the community and good for FB given the current techlash.
Users:
oDemand side:
· Blood banks
· Hospitals/individuals with an urgent need for a specific type of blood
oSupply side:
· Blood donors who are active
· Blood donors who haven’t donated recently
· Potential blood donors (people who qualify based on heath rules)
Scenario to focus on: I think it's most important to focus on proactively building up
infrastructure and awareness, it’s much better to do this ahead of time and in
cases of urgent need you’ll have built up a roster of people and process for
donations. Much easier to call on existing users than solicit new users.
With this in mind we should set the goal on getting the most people to donate
blood for the first time (activation of this community).
So as far as specific user to focus on, the biggest potential is for people that have
never donated so we can get them to registered do it for the first time and rinse
and repeat, and as mentioned be able to be called upon in times of urgent need.
Supply side never donated before needs/painpoints:
· Determine eligibility to donate
· Don’t know my own blood type and how much need there is for it
· Don’t know where / how much work/pain in involved
· Don’t feel motivated to do so
The two painpoints I would focus on are: not knowing their own blood type and the
need, and increasing motivation to do so. If you can address both of these getting
people to determine eligibility and how to go about it are much easier once you
convince them of the need.
A few ideas on how to solve this:
Blood profile:
· Add in section where users can document their blood type, this should be kept
private and communicated with a lock icon. Once a user enters in their blood type
a short blurb communicating the rarity or need of their blood should come up, for
example universal donor and very hard to find blood types. AB-?
· Badging that keeps track of how many times a user has donated, there could be
levels: new blood all the way up to supertanker.
Motivational feedback/social proof:
· Posts into newsfeed that you’ve donated
· Seeing which of your friends have donated blood
· Videos from celebrities thanking you
· Videos from real blood recipients thanking people for saving their lives
· In addition to donating blood also donate a meal, partner with
corporations/existing people who pay for blood and redirect that to charity
If I had to prioritize across these ideas I would:
· Blood profile
· Show which of your friends have donated (social proof)
· Feedback loop by unlocking videos from recipients
We could launch by tying into global event, build up supply side and then enhance
with the ability to directly solicit blood from those who have rare blood types
10. How would you improve Spotify?

This is essentially an Improve a Product question phrased in a different way. This
one is a bit easier since they outright tell you to focus on your user type. Let's first
go over the Improve a Product formula:
3. Ask clarifying questions
4. Identify users, behaviors, and pain points
5. State product goal
6. Brainstorm small improvements
7. Brainstorm bolder improvements
8. Measure success
9. Summarize
Okay great. Now that we have the formula, it's time to execute on it!
Ask clarifying questions

Before we start identifying possible solutions, it's important we gather as much
information as possible. If we're unfamiliar with the product, now is the time to ask
about core features. The ask here is quite straight forward, so let's reiterate the
feature so we're sure we're on the same page.
Okay great, so essentially how I'd improve Spotify for my user type. To be clear, I'm
a premium user who typically uses Spotify while driving to work.
Identify users, behaviors, and pain points

Since they've asked us to self-identify, we should focus solely on this user type.
Furthermore, explain nuances that makes this user type unique compared to more
traditional user types.
In this case, I'm a driving user. I'm not atypical as I enjoy music like everyone else,
and drivers as a whole don't have a preferred genre. The main pain points we have
are around the joy of discovery and cataloguing new music while driving. This is
incredibly difficult as right now it takes 7 clicks to save a song I discover to an
existing playlist. As you can imagine, while driving this is incredibly difficult and
dangerous.
State product goal

Let's look at why Spotify is successful, and then talk about what goals we have for
it to improve the experience for the driving user.
Spotify's main goal as a product is to help music lovers discover, catalog, and listen
to music. As a driver, this isn't really satisfied since what was once joy of discovery
is annoyance since I can't efficiently save new songs.Spotify needs to do a better
job helping drivers discover and catalog music. Otherwise this could lead to user
churn in the long run or lower engagement.
Brainstorm small improvements

Certain interviewers are more risk-averse than others so we recommend starting
with a few small improvements to cater towards them.
One small improvement is to add timestamps to the History View of songs. This
would allow a user to simply remember at what time of day they were enjoying a
song and go back at a later date to view the timestamp to add to a playlist
normally.
Brainstorm bolder improvements
Other interviewers are more interested in grander ideas. We should also provide
bolder ideas to help sate their needs.
One more robust improvement that could solve this issue is to add a driving mode
lock screen view. Right now, the lock screen view has mainly song navigation tools
which may not be as necessary while driving. Instead, adding Quick Add buttons to
preferred playlists would reduce the number of clicks required from 7 to 1. This
would reignite the joy of discovering music on Spotify by helping users efficiently
catalog new music to certain favorite playlists.
Measuring success
It's critical to evaluate your own implementations. So, going over how you'll
measure success is vital. Be specific on metrics you'll track.
Our main goal is to increase the feasibility of saving songs for driving users. I'd
want to look at overall usage of Driving Mode and History View as these features
are released. These would be successful if users are actively using these features.
I'd define usage in Driving Mode as those who have Driving Mode enabled, and the
number of songs saved during these sessions. For History View I'd define usage as
users who view their history over time.I'd also look at other metrics like overall
driver retention and driver stickiness. These features should both increase
retention and increase stickiness as driving users are better catered for.
Summarize
Be concise in your summary. No more than 30 seconds (about 4 sentences).
Spotify is an app I use a lot, but as a driver it lacks certain functionality that makes
the app great for non-drivers. Specifically, discovery and cataloguing music is
difficult as it takes 7 clicks to save a song to a playlist from your lock screen, which
is difficult to do while driving. I would add in Driving Mode and timestamps to
History View to increase driver usage and retention.
11. Design a fire alarm for the deaf.

Approach
3. Clarify the question
1. Define deaf --> unable to hear, but can communicate via sign language,
lip read and use all other senses
2. Define fire alarm --> for residential use, it notifies occupants of smoke
and potential fires and alerts fire department to check in and/or come
over
3. Define constraints --> budgetary constraint, design should be user-
friendly and convenient
4. Define goals --> get folks out of harm's way quickly and notify fire
department to check in or come over
7. Identify users
1. Deaf people who live in a home by themselves
2. Deaf people who are home alone, because other household members are
away for an extended period of time
5. Identify pain points
1. Need to be able to shut it off, especially if it is a false alarm
2. Need to be made aware of alarm if they are sleeping
3. Needs to reach all rooms/corners of the house
4. Needs to be blatant enough to get their attention if they are distracted
(on the phone or making dinner)
7. Brainstorm solutions
1. Wearable that vibrates when smoke or fire is detected. It is connected to
smoke detectors placed all over the house. It can be shut off with a
button. Another button can contact local fire department via video
technology or text
2. Home smoke detectors are connected to an app on user's phone. When
smoke is detected, the phone vibrates, sends user push notifications and
reaches out to the user's emergency contact and local fire department to
check in via text or video communication software(for sign-language
communication)
3. A special paint on the walls of the house that has a chemical that senses
smoke/fire and turns the walls red/or noticeable contrasting color to
notify the user. User can then contact fire department, or open windows
to air out the house if it is a false alarm. When smoke dissipates, the
chemical in the paint returns to normal.
6. Evaluate and prioritize solutions
1. Wearables can be annoying to wear 24/7 and the vibration might to rouse
a sleeping user (2)
2. Seems like a viable option to have the sensors connected to an app
which reaches out to an emergency contact and the fire department, but
the user still needs to know to get out of the house. Perhaps the sensors
around the house can emit a bright white light that will pierce through a
user's sleep and light up the whole house like it is daytime. However, if
the user is in the shower, the light might not reach that room. (1)
3. Won't help if user is sleeping, distracted, not home or at night when
everything is dark. (3)
6. Recommend solution and conclude
1. I recommend option B. The app can be free or a low price to fit with the
budgetary constraint. A mobile app is user-friendly and convenient,
because users often have their phones nearby. It reaches out to an
emergency contact and the fire department via an automated text
message so they can spread awareness, get help and communicate. Even
if the user is not home, the app is still connected to the home's smoke
detectors and notifies appropriate parties. In addition, other household
members or even neighbors can be connected and look out for each
other by communicating via the app on a messaging forum to investigate,
post pictures and rate the strength of the smoke/fire. This is a good
backup, because even if one person's phone is dead or the deaf user is
left unaware, others are included in the communication channel.
However, if technology has a glitch or is faulty, a backup would be crucial.
In this case, an alternate technology, like a wearable can be used as an
extra safety precaution.
12. How would you monetize WhatsApp?
Candidate: Before we go ahead I have a few clarifying questions, I’d like to ask.
Interviewer: Sure**.**
Candidate: Just to clarify, we would like to improve WhatsApp and our goal is to
earn revenue from it. Is that true?
Interviewer: Yes, that is true.
Candidate: Great, WhatsApp currently has 3 different plans.
3. Private WhatsApp
4. WhatsApp Business for small B2C businesses
5. WhatsApp Business API, for medium and large B2C businesses.
I know that the 3’rd category is already monetized and WhatsApp charges a
considerable amount of money to Approve Business accounts. On the other hand,
the first and second categories are not monetized completely free. Do you want
me to focus on any one of them?
Interviewer: You can choose.
Candidate: Do we have any limitations in terms of how we would want to monetize
it? E.g. are we allowed to have paid version of WhatsApp itself?
Interviewer: let’s assume that we want to keep Whatsapp itself free because we
don’t want to jeopardize its high user base.
Candidate: Okay, understood. So I would like to start by doing an overall analysis of
Whatsapp use case today vs. the competition, then describe some pain points,
prioritize them, and brainstorm ideas on how to monetize them in ways beyond
WhatsApp paid/Subscription version. Does that make sense?
Interviewer: Sure, Go ahead.
Candidate: First of all, since I have never used business versions of WhatsApp, I
would like to focus on the private sector which I am more familiar with. Also, I will
assume that we are going to start from the geographical locations that WhatsApp
already has a high user base e.g. Europe and Latin America and not considering
countries such as China which WhatsApp’s competitor Wechat is dominant.
Here are some of the most important use cases:
Texts and Voice (End-to-end Encryption)
Most of the competitors support this feature with even more innovative
add-ons e.g. Snapchat BitEmoji, Telegram supports video messaging,
etc.
Sharing Documents, Photos, and Videos
Telegram supports 100 photo/document/video sharing with customizable
sizes while Whatsapp has the limitation of 30 and usually, the received
document/photo/video has much lesser quality compared to the original
one.
Group Chat
Simple Group chap with no extra add-on e.g. bots, pols, analytical tools
and also WhatsApp does not support Channels like Telegram
Voice and Video Calls
Whatsapp is doing a great job in terms of voice/video quality compared to
its main competitor Apple's Facetime but for example, it does not support
voice/video calling from its Desktop/Web version.
Broadcast Lists: to message multiple people at once, only contacts will
receive it
I want to focus on the above use cases and focus deeply on the pain points in this
section and brainstorm some ideas for monetization.
The section that I choose is Group chat due to the fact that WhatsApp is providing
the least features among its competitors and by improving this section we can
increase our user engagement which leads to more revenue in the case of
monetization.
Here are some pain points:
There are some groups that are held and usually have private use cases. E,g,
family/friends groups but there no possibility in terms of having a publicly
held Group/Channel (Only one-sided e.g. CNN News Channel) for users to
gather more information
At the moment WhatsApp and its competitors provide channels/groups but
there is no way for the user to make sure about the identity/Integrity of those
channels/groups. For example, you might follow a channel that claims it
belongs to Oprah but you don’t trust it.
There is no personalization in terms of the content that you see in those
channels/groups. E.g. you might follow a cooking channel but you are only
interested in Asian style foods. The only way is just to search the keywords
and that is so inefficient.
I would also mention that WhatsApp’s company, Facebook has extreme potential in
the ad industry and powerful research on machine learning methods such as
collaborative filtering with the ability to know personal and granular behavioral
data. With this in mind, I would like to propose a few monetization solutions to
address the above pain points with leveraging Facebook potentials.
Solutions:
3. Facebook (WhatsApp) can introduce verified channels/ groups. E.g. News
channels (BBC, CNN, ...), Governments and etc… and show them by a special
like ✅ . Then it can use Facebook Ads and show them in those channels.
Here people who request those adds will pay.
4. Educational organizations like universities can create educational channels
and charge their customers to give them access. Another similar idea would
be to have collaboration with Websites like Coursera and integrate those
courses as a channel in WhatsApp and give some parts of the salary to
Coursera.
5. Facebook (WhatsApp) can especially integrate Facebook’s personalized
News as some suggested cards on top of the screen. Users can pay a small
number of subscription fees to receive tailored news each hour.
Among the above solution, I would suggest the first one since Facebook already
have the backbone technology and it can quickly result in a new revenue stream.
There is also a tradeoff for this solution in terms of the balance that they should
follow on the number of Ads. If there are too many people will just leave the
Channel.
13. How would you improve Google Maps?
Start by explaining your understanding of Google Maps.
It is a free web/mobile-based feature that allows users to
3. navigate from Point A to B, trip planning
4. locate restaurants, hair salons, other points of interest around a point on the
map
5. Businesses use to sponsor advertisements based on Map search string.
Clarify what does improvement means, "Improve" is a loaded term - what do we
mean by improvement: increased ad revenue, improve the quality of the results,
increase downloads, improve engagement, or something else?
In this case, we are going to focus on engagement (confirm with the interviewer)
Clarify that the improvement or increasing engagement focuses on a particular
channel: mobile, web, specific browser, OS, etc.? (we will go with holistic)
Clarify if there are any constraints, such as timeline or engineering resource
limitation, that you need to work with (no restriction)
Summarize - we want to increase engagement of Google maps on all platforms
As we are short on time, I want to focus on a critical persona or user segments and
its use cases, prioritize the top use cases of the persona and work towards a
practical solution that improves engagement. Ask - if the interviewer is
comfortable with this high-level approach?
User segments
Locals - folks who are local to the place and interested in using google maps
for daily commute, local restaurant/shops lookup
Travelers - folks who are traveling to a place and are interested in planning a
trip, explore new areas, look up restaurants, museums, etc.
Businesses - using Google maps for supply chain optimization, advertising
their business, etc.
As our goal is to improve engagement, I think Locals and Travelers provide us the
most opportunities to achieve this goal. To narrow down even further, I would go
with the Travelers user segment, and I think some of the use cases of this segment
might overlap with Locals.
User segment selected - Travelers
Let's list out some of their use cases.
3. As a traveler, I want to route my trips with public transportation options so
that I can cover all the places I want to visit most efficiently.
4. As a traveler, I want to have the maps available to me offline so that I do not
have to pay roaming/ data charges.
5. As a traveler, I want to know if there are any special local events happenings
and if any tickets are available so that I can plan to attend those.
6. As a traveler, I want to know what times are best to visit museums and tourist
hot spots so that I can avoid heavy tourist foot traffic and high entry ticket
costs.
Out of the stories or use cases above, I think #1 and #4 can be collapsed into one
and can help address two user needs
How do we solve these stories?
Solution 1: Google maps can help prepare an itinerary for the customers every day
based on user inputs. For example, the user can select the places they want to
visit, times when s/he wants to eat food or take a break. Ask whether to optimize
for time or cost; based on it, the Google map gives out the most optimized path.
Solution 2: Customer uses the Google map to draw out /select the places that
he/she wants to visit, including the order s/he intends to see, and Google maps
overlay it with the best possible public/private transportation options.
Solution 3: Surprise me - we can create a simple quiz that helps us understand
their tastes about travel, and based on it, Google maps out an itinerary that would
fit customers taste
Solution 1 - aligns with our goal - L, development effort - L
Solution 2 - aligns with our goal - M, development effort - L.
Solution 3 - aligns with our goal - S, development effort- M.
Based on the above t-shirt sizing, even though Solution 1 has a high development
cost but it does provide us the most engagement, so I would prioritize developing
solution 1
I want to roll this feature out for a small percentage of users first, maybe 5-10%,
and evaluate some critical metrics before scaling these features.
Key metrics I would focus on
Avg time spent on the feature
D/W/M active users of the feature
% of customers using the feature/ customer exposed to the feature
14. How would you improve Google Docs? What are the key metrics?
Questions
Is the purpose of these metrics to quantify the performance specifically of
the features we suggest? Or Docs as a broader product and its impact on the
Google ecosystem? Let's assume the former.
Is there any goal we are trying to improve for Google Docs? Let's assume we
want to increase usage, and have Docs also drive productivity suite
subscriptions.
Are there any specific users we're aiming to target? No further input, the
answer to the previous question informs this one.
Structure & Answer
Okay, so we're looking to improve Google Docs usage, and drive post sale
monetization through productivity suite subscriptions. We want to also suggest key
metrics to measure success. Great -- I'll first go through which users we're
targeting, their current experience with Docs, and certain pain points and areas of
improvement. Next, I'll go through some feature ideas and vision. Finally, I'll go
through key metrics, and possible challenges/problems with my proposal.
Since our goal is to drive usage and also post sale monetization, let's brainstorm
on working adults, and also college students. Working adults because these are
immediate customers, and college students because these are the next customers.
Some issues working adults have with Google Docs include difficulty shifting from
Microsoft Word to Docs. All through school, students use Microsoft Word to
compose assignments, print assignments, and turn them in for a mark. When they
enter the working world, they often switch to Google Docs (if their company
subscribes to G Suite), and this can be jarring. Given this consideration, I'd like to
shift focus to college/university students in an effort to invest in acquiring
customers of the future.
So why are students using Microsoft Word instead of Docs?
Default installation on Windows devices
Integration with citation software (article/book database --> MLA or APA
citation)
Simplicity for offline use & historical precedence
What else do students wish word processors could provide?
Integration with plagiarism detection in order to make sure papers don't get
flagged for cheating
Quick-access thesaurus to improve the diction in essays
Higher quality grammar suggestions to improve the quality of essays
Dictation
Of these user challenges, the most interesting one to me is integration with citation
software, primarily because this impacts all college students who take a class
requiring essay writing, and Google is in a unique space to capitalize on this, given
the ownership of Google Scholar. My hypothesis is that by driving user delight in
college, we can convert long-time Word users into Google Docs users right before
they enter the workforce. While in the workforce, they will have input into what
productivity suite they want to use, and this will in turn drive more subscriptions of
G Suite.
I envision the product to be an add-in to Google Docs, which can be accessed by
right-clicking the mouse. The user would be able to write a quote, and then access
the Citation add-in, which contains a database of all published scientific journals,
books, and articles which are searchable. The user finds the correct source, and
then selects it, selects a citation format, and clicks "Okay" -- voila, the user gets
the citation in the right format in the paper, and in the Bibliography section. The
Citation add-in can include some predictive modeling based on previous selections
to predict which types of publications/articles/books the user is likely to select to
improve search functionality (Google's bread and butter). This is the productivity
tool of the future college student, and I'm envious of the student who gets to use
this (after completing countless essays and a Master's thesis in the sciences).
Key metrics for Usage
Main metrics to track the impact of the Citations Add-in on Google Docs usage
includes a split of sessions/user of Citation users vs Non-Citation users,
normalized for user demographic. You could also run an A/B test, splitting users
who have this feature auto-installed, and users without the feature available. Along
with sessions/user, I would track weekly active users (since essays are often due
each week). Along with usage metrics for Google Docs, I would track lower level
app usage metrics (citations entered, quick-delete citations, average search result
position of the correct search result, etc. this can get very granular).
Metrics for monetization
This one is difficult, since our hypothesis is that these students will graduate and
become professionals who subscribe to the product. You could run a long-term
cohort study on randomly sampled college students pre- and post- launch of the
product and follow them over a couple years. This is a hard-sell as an experiment,
and we would likely need to rely on common sense that building product love in
students will lead to more users in the future.
The market is sizeable here (all university students), the need is there (citations are
a pain), and the execution is solid given Google's IP and talent. The main problem
with this proposal is that it is difficult to tie success into monetization, which was
one goal of the initiative. That being said, usage success is clearly measurable, and
I believe that if we convert students, we are recruiting professional users of the
future.
15. Design a great gas station.

Assumptions:
a) Gas station services both Petrol & diesel vehicles
b) Country: USA
c) Location: Cosmopolitan cities having corporate offices with limited public
transport
d) Vehicles: LMV & Middle tier motor vehicles
e) North star metric: Retention & Revenue
f) Has coffee/light snacks available in gas station shop
User segments:
a) End consumers
b) Oil suppliers
Will go ahead with end consumer segment who come to fuel their vehicles as its
larger user base compared to Oil suppliers whose tankers may come only once a
week or day to refill oil tank. To break down end consumer segment further will
focus on rush hour consumers (example: office goers).
User journey & Pain points:
a) Reach gas station & spend time in the queue for one's turn leads to high anxiety
specially during rush hour
b) Get out of the car & manually fuel the car and manually clean the front and rear
mirror
c) Pay at fuel machine but limited to payment mechanisms i.e Credit/Debit card
d) Walk to gas station shop to pick up light snack/coffee drink
Will go ahead and choose Pain points b, c and d to come up with couple of solution
features to help achieve following
Goal: Improve end consumer user experience during rush hour to help increase
retention and upsell products.
Features:
a) 10x thinking: Voice (Google Assistant or Siri) activated fuel machine with robots
to take fuel order & fill fuel tank and clean front and back mirror
b) Payment mechanisms like QR code scanner integrated to Google pay or Apple
pay or via wearables devices like Android/Apple watch
c) Light snack like sandwich, quick bites/coffee dispensable machine next to gas
machine
To stack rank above features in Impact vs Effort, c) seems to be short term win tied
to the goal. b) will require compliance approvals for new payment mechanisms
(mid term) and a) will require decent redesigning effort of existing gas station
machines and bring in robotics (long term)
Success metrics:
a) Guardrail:
i) Average quantity of fuel sold per month
ii) Average number of coffee/snack items sold per month (for last 6 months) as
benchmark
b) % increase in number of coffee/snack items sold per month
c) % increase in MAU coming to fill fuel
d) % increase in returning users/month
Tradeoffs:
a) Revenue leakage: End consumer's time distribution to snack/coffee machine
may lead to reduction in average fuel quantity purchased and fuel comes for higher
price compared to upselling products.
b) Less usage of dispensable coffee/snack machine: Limited space next to gas
machine to install dispensable machine may limit options to end user.
16. Design a refrigerator for the office

Clarification Questions:
3. Can we define and describe office ? my current office ( IT ) , or government
offices, starup offices, etc
I assume we are desgining a refrigerator for my current office. It is an office with
multiple floors with canteen on one of the floors. There is seating arrangement for
around 200 - 300 on every floor. Generally there is maximum usage during lunch
time and then snacks time since part of us dont have breakfast and dinner in office.
3. Is there any cost limitation for the product ? No
Goal: To provide refrigeration services for an office
User Personas:
3. Employees
Employees who bring food from home and want to store it till consumption. Teams
that order food items like ice cream and want to store till consumption. Employees
who need cold water (office has cold water dispenser so not taking this persona in
consideration)
3. Cleaning staff
This persona needs to maintain the hygiene and cleanliness of the refirgerator. The
usage is frequent/ regular
3. Maintenance staff
This persona needs to ensure the refrigerator is functional - serviced at regular
intervals or is repaired when broken
Prioritization : The usage by employees is not that different and many refrigerators
in market catering to those needs. We can club the cleaning and maintenance staff
as representation of the needs of an office.
User needs:
3. Not sure which items to discard at end of day.
employees store food and sometimes might forget to consume due to change in
plans.
3. Energy efficieny
needs different energy consumption than home refrigerators due to less usage
during non-office hours
3. need for repair
need to esure a functional refrigerator since many users dependent on it. need
faster repair
3. easy to clean
need to be able to clean easily
3. ability to store food items by office that employees can have. ex - cold soft
drinks etc
need storage, accessibility and update about items.
Prioritization: I would prioritize energy efficiency, ability to store food items for
employee consumption, need for repair over others. Not sure which items to
discard at end of day will be a low frequency occurence. easy to clean : most
refrigerators today have detachable units for easy clean.
Solution : Energy efficieny : refrigerator can go into energy efficient mode by
detecting presence of items within need to repair : refigerator can self detect fault/
error and can send an appointment / intimation request for need of service. If able
to diagnose fault, can send need of items along with request. need for items
storage : refrigeration can have a carousel / vending machine structure on part of
the refigerator to store cold drinks for ease of access by employees for a cold
drink. notificaiton can be sent for replacement in case of items exhaustion or
analytics gathered to identify purchases
17. Design a LinkedIn for blue collar workers

Clarifying Questions & Assumptions:
Blue collar :relating to manual work or workers, particularly in industry, they usually
dont have college degree
Linkedin: a social network that focuses on professional networking and career
development.
Why is linkedin expanding to blue collar workers?
Ans: to expand new market as they have great untapped potential
Do you want anew app or integrate it with Linkedin?
Ans: you decide
I would like to look more into the problem space before deciding on that
Target customer
I am sure blue collar works include ppl of different profession. But I would like to
focus on workers who will be involved in building a house like construction workers,
plumbers, electrician, carpenters
because I have a better understanding of that domain.
My general understanding of Blue collar jobs are its contract based, they usually
get these contracts through friends or a contracting agency ( middle men),they
don't use resume, they work on shifts ( night shits and day shifts) or hourly, some
jobs need specialized skills and training, they get paid hourly, most of jobs are
labor intensive so I am guessing they prefer younger and fitter person, they are not
tech savvy, they prefer more face to face interaction cause they work on site away
from computers at work.
Pain points:
3. Finding new jobs
4. Not knowing how to market themselves or the benefits of marketing themself
5. Learning new skills --> knowing what is best to learn ( in terms of demand)
6. Technology(computers and internet) is too complicated to understand
7. Middle men taking lot of money out of their pay
Solution:
Assuming most of the blue collar workers dont have computers, cause
smartphones nowadays can do all the basic tasks that has to be done and they are
always on the move and it is easier to use mobile phone. Like drivers can use their
phone anytime. I think our solution has to be an app
here are the solutions for corresponding pain point
3. A system where jobs are posted and job seekers will be matched into
particular job postings. Users can search for postings based on their
requirement like shift, type of job
4. A profile which users can build, it will enable them to display their contact
information (phone numbers are very important), work experience like
buildings or houses they have been involved in, their skills, pictures, years of
experience. Friends or past employers can give testimonials for a user, which
can build their profile/portfolio
5. A newsfeed with information relevant to their skills. For eg, if he is a roofing
guy he will get articles and new on lated roofing technology
6. The UI has to be simple. Its important to remember tat these are ppl who
does a lot of physical labor and might be using the app after a long tiring day.
They will not be patient to read long articles or long job requirement
description. So UI should be more focussed towards pictures and images
7. payment should be displayed to our users. The payment system should be
transparent and users should be able to know their pay beforehand, what is
the cut off (if any).
MVP - 1,2,4, and 5 should be included in the MVP. I think its should be a standalone
app and not part of linkedin. The requirements of this audience is different from the
current linkedin users, its is very important to have a UI that appeals to the blue
collar workers who are as tech savy as an average linkedin user.
Product vision: To empower the blue collar workers to be in charge of their own
careers.
Upcoming feature
3. the above mentioned newsfeed.
4. Expand to other markets like drivers, farming jobs.
5. A system that matches users to vocational training in colleges or community
colleges to keep themself updated. For eg, with self driving car coming up
drivers should be prepared for an alternate profession, so we could match
them to other career paths like something that revolves around operating
bulldozer
Tradeoff/ Challenges
3. Its important to have jobs in our product (like uber needs drivers). Ppl
wouldn't use our product otherwise. We need to attract ppl looking for
construction workers to post on our product. We could advertise faster and
easier recruiting process compared to their local contracting agency. Also
cheaper, if we can completely cut off the middle me.
4. Blue collar workers are not as tech savvy so we need a strong go to market
strategy to introduce them to our app.
Metrics:
No of accounts created, No of completed profiles
No of jobs applied, no of successful job matching,
Key metricL no of successful job matching
18. How you would improve walmart.com?

3. Performance Optimization: Walmart.com is a complex web application with
many moving parts. One potential area for improvement could be to optimize
the performance of the site to make it load faster and feel more responsive.
This could involve things like optimizing images, improving server response
times, or reducing the number of HTTP requests required to load the page.
4. User Experience (UX) Improvements: Another area for improvement could be
to focus on improving the user experience of the site. This could involve
making the site more intuitive and easy to use, improving search functionality,
or streamlining the checkout process to make it faster and more efficient.
5. Personalization: Personalization is becoming an increasingly important part of
e-commerce, and Walmart.com could benefit from more personalized
experiences for users. This could involve using machine learning algorithms
to recommend products based on users' past purchases or browsing history,
or tailoring the content of the site to individual users based on their interests
and preferences.
6. Mobile Optimization: With more and more users accessing the internet on
mobile devices, it's important for e-commerce sites to be optimized for
mobile. Walmart.com could potentially benefit from a mobile-first approach
that ensures the site is fast, responsive, and easy to use on smaller screens.
Of course, these are just a few ideas, and there are likely many other ways I could
contribute to improving Walmart.com as a software engineer. Ultimately, the best
approach would depend on a deep understanding of the site's current strengths
and weaknesses, as well as the needs and preferences of its users.
19. You are a PM for Facebook Travel. What would you build?
Clarifying Questions:
Assuming this will be part of FB product.
Assuming this is for the US and no major constraints in terms of finances or
resources.
Goal: To improve user engagement
Travel Personas:
Solo personal Traveler
Group personal Travelers
Business travelers
Tour operators
Transportation Companies (airlines, roadways, trains etc).
Choosing to focus on group travelers because most personal travelers usually
travel in groups and the volume of this user base is also the largest, thus it will help
me have the biggest impact on the goal of improving engagment.
Some key pain points for group travelers:
Inspiration & Discovery:
Discovering new places that you would like to visit. Inspiring a user to
travel or setup group travel.
Adding group members for starting the travel
Finding out friends who are interested in traveling together and managing
schedules with them to start a trip.
Travel arrangements - Booking travel tickets and hotel
Finding the cheapest and best airline/train/cars for travel and the
best/cheapest hotels.
Preparing itinerary
Figuring out where to visit - top tourist spots, top restaurants, and night
Managing expenses and splitting payments
Splitting expenses with friends or members we are traveling with
Translation in foreign countries
Hard to communicate with the locals in a foreign country.
Maintaining a checklist of things to carry - including documents, passports,
phone etc.
People tend to forget things a lot - passports, boarding passes, tickets
Prioritizing the problems:
3. Focussing on inspiring users and preparing a travel itinerary to a user’s liking
4. Group travel participants
5. Bookings and travel arrangements
6. Translation
7. Checklist of things
3, 4, 5 are important problems but there are several other products in the market
that are already solving it (such as Priceline, google translate, remember the milk,
etc.) but there is a bigger unmet need in terms of inspiration and facebook has
strong assets in terms of FB friends, photos, videos, stories, pages, etc that we
can use to solve for travel inspiration.
Proposed feature:
FB Travel Feature - Like a tab that is discovered via hamburger menu and will
contain some of our MVP features for inspiring the user to travel and plan
travel with friends. A user will be able to select top cities to travel to and a
respective personalized page created for them. These pages will be like travel
to mexico city → when you click on the page it will contain the photos from
my friends who have been to mexico city, their posts, any other high quality
public photos, and then also things like FB pages and list of top restaurants,
nightlife spots - their respective photos and videos.
Feature Ideas:
FB travel tab (table stakes) - with default things like search for a city and a
personalized collection of things to do in the city. Recommendation of to do
things - places to visit, restaurants etc.
Group Travel Inviter - Allow a user to invite their friends/family to their
personalized collection from #1 to explore different places to visit and make a
decision where they should go.
Trip & Itinerary builder - Allow users to create a trip in the collection section
with start, end dates, list of friends, and adding the list of FB pages for every
day to make a list of things they want to do. As users go to these different
venues, they will be allowed to publish stories with their friends and locations
tagged and publish it to their friends.
Measuring success
3. # of users that discover and open the travel tab per month
4. # of personalized collections created per user per month
5. # of friends who are invited per user per collection per month
6. # of trips and itineraries created per user per month.
Risks/Pitfalls
3. Cannibalization of other FB features like newsfeed
4. Comparison with other products like tripadvisor, yelp, airbnb experiences.
20. Design a shopping app to improve the in-store grocery shopping
experience.
Assuming this is meant to be a standalone product. Its a standalone app.
Goal: Simplify the shopping experience in store for a user.
Success would be defined in terms of app usage as a proxy for user satisfaction.
I want to think about the a given user segment, their pain points, ways to improve
their pain and a way to evaluate those solutions.
Broadly user personas associated with grocery shopping are - stores and
customers.
For the purpose of this interview I want to focus on customer segment and slice
them deeper by age:
15-21 year old (Very young, less disposable income)
21-35 year old (professionals - young)
35-50 year old (professionals - mature)
50+ year old (older)
Since the goal is to improve shopping experience, I want to focus on a particular
segment. 21-35year old that live in urban cities like SF, NYC and have a high
propensity to be tech friendly and may already be using apps for grocery shopping.
Some of the problems that this segment faces is:
Hard to remember the things they want to buy - may not necessarily have the list
of all the things they need
Hard to navigate the aisle
Too much confusion about what product to buy from the choices they have
Going overboard with their budget by getting distracted.
Waiting in long checkout queues
Putting things in their carry bag
In order to solve this I would like to build a product that addresses some of the
above problems and come up with features that address those problems:
Shopping list maker - Specify the things you want to buy in a list format with
potential store visit dates. App will use NLP etc to resolve and understand things
like pasta, onions etc and map it to available item in the store.
Store navigator - Creates an optimized aisle map so the user can quickly find all
the items they need and checkout fast enough.
Drop Scanner - As you put items in your cart it will add it to your e-bill and as you
are about to checkout it will use it to check you without the grocery person
scanning every item. Note - there is a risk here of fraud where a person doesn't
scan the item they are putting in their cart.
Budget alerter - Tells you as you are making your list if you are likely to go
overboard your weekly or monthly budget.
Item Informer - Scan the bar code or photo of an item and get all the information
you want. Whether it matches a certain diet
In order to prioritize between these features, I want to measure how these features
measure up against eng cost, impact on UX.
Based on my t shirt sizing (not shown here) --> List maker, navigator, and budget
alerter will solve a lot of problems. Based on this I would propose a feature that
combines a lot of these things in 1.
For a given grocery store app like say safeway, you will have a list maker where you
can define the items you want, the list maker will tell you when you can visit based
on your calendar, it will tell you the price range your list in going to cost, the store
that is closest to you that has all the items and a map of the store aisles with a path
a customer should take to checkout ASAP.
In order to launch and measure the success I will take the following approach. I will
roll this feature out to a small fraction of users in SF or NYC which I believe has a
higher tech adoption % or another market where people use the grocery app a lot.
I will educate the users about this experience via push, emails. Once a user has
been exposed to these treatments I will look at metrics like activation(list creates),
link to calendars, execution (user actually going to a store), setting price limit for
budget and following it in checkout and repeat usage rate to understand the
success. If the metrics look positive for the business then I will roll this out to a
larger pool of users.
21. How would you monetize Messenger?
How would you monetize messenger?

Clarifying Questions
Is this messenger app or web?
INTERVIEWER: Assume both are a possibility, but feel free to pick one
Is there a larger facebook goal or metric we are optimizing for?
INTERVIEWER: Monetization speaks to revenue so assume goal is to increase
revenue for Facebook as a whole
Does this include messenger Rooms or should we stick to the traditional FB
messenger?
INTERVIEWER: Messenger rooms is a great call out, but let's stick to the traditional
FB messenger product for now since messenger rooms is so new.
Cool makes sense. Thanks - Here's how I'd like to structure my response:
3. Mission of facebook and how this product aligns
4. Outline user groups, their needs, and prioritize for one based on scope and
impact
5. Brainstorm potential solutions
6. Prioritize / Choose a solution to start with
7. Discuss and draw MVP implementation with some light wireframes
8. Summarize the solution, who we're building for, need solved, and why it
aligns with Facebook Mission
Make sense? INTERVIEWER: Great!
Tie to FB Mission & Goal
Messenger as a product has a lot of opportunity to both build communities and be
a tool to connect people. Through group conversations, direct message
conversations, and even more transactional messaging like for marketplace selling.
One thing I think we would want to consider when trying to monetize messenger is
that it doesn't negatively impact overall engagement (measured by DAUs) using
messenger. If we were to think extremes and try to maximize revenue opportunities
it may actually cannibalize what makes messenger so attractive as a platform to
it's users.
Because of that I'd like to focus on monetization solutions for messenger that can
also increase engagement.
Make sense? INTERVIEWER: Awesome!
User Groups, needs, and priority
Next I'd like to think about a few different types of users for messenger to explore
where it may make sense to monetize the existing ecosystem. One minute let me
jot down and organize thoughts.... (HOLD 30 seconds)
Use Cases / User Groups
P2P Chats between Friends - Needs:
Communicate casually to share Content with each other
Scheduling something or organizing to meet up
Emotional need to feel connected with others (especially when sheltered
at home)
Playing games / video chatting via messenger
Just saying hi
B2C Chats - Businesses or FB Pages communicating with customers - Needs:
Selling products
Providing customer service
Marketing an opportunity
Promoting Content the business created
Group Chats - Among groups of friends or people with shared interests -
Needs:
Connect with others
Share relevant content
Scheduling / meeting up
Just saying hi
Playing games / video chatting via messenger
All some what similar to the P2P chats between friends but can be
considered differently bc it's a larger group
For sake of time would you like me to prioritize a user group / use case here or
would you prefer I outline potential solutions first for each and we can prioritize
after that?
INTERVIEWER: Let's pick a group and brainstorm solutions for that group so we
can get deeper. How would you prioritize which segment to pick?
Ok cool makes sense.
Prioritize User Group
Thinking back to our goal of being able to monetize while also driving further
engagement so as to not cannibalize DAU on the messenger platform, I think I'd
like to focus on a user group we could create a new type of messaging for that
would be so interested in using that type of messaging (have a strong need for it)
they would considering paying for it.
To me that clearly would be the B2C Message experience. Businesses or FB Pages
that want to communicate directly with their customers or followers via messenger.
I know right now a bit of that exists with like messenger widgets on websites or
initiating support conversations from FB pages / Apps, but let's explore some other
potential solutions for B2C messaging that may create revenue opportunities and
increase DAU on messenger.
One second, let me gather my thoughts.
Brainstorm Creative Solutions
3. Promotional Messages (Ads via messenger) - sent from businesses as text
ads to users based on their interest
4. Newsletter / Message Subscriptions - Like Mailchimp but via messenger (user
opt in of course)
5. Sales Concierge Messages - like a chatbot type experience you could build
into messenger conversations with your follower
Prioritize Solutions Identify Tradeoffs
Thinking of each solution again with the lens of maximizing DAU and revenue
opportunity I think the one that I like the most is actually #2 - I'll get into why in a
minute, but first let me disqualify the other two.
#1 is possibly the largest revenue opportunity, but users are likely to use
messenger less (Lower DAU) or turn off notifications if their messenger inbox is
inundated with ads from businesses they haven't necessarily opted into. In
newsfeed or videos it's more common place to show an ad and a user is ok with it,
but messenger ads start to feel like those unwanted spam calls or text messages
we all hate.
#3 is really interesting as a way to help brands increase conversions and possibly
sell more. Something they would definitely pay for, but as a solution for us to test
and roll out I would imagine it has the largest barrier to entry for a business.
Meaning they would have to build logic and lots of content for the concierge for it
to be effective. Adoption may be most difficult on this one because of the technical
and creative lift the brands would face.
That leaves us with #2 which I actually think could be interesting and follows a
proven model we know works for marketing and customer's are accepting of
because they opt in to promotions like via email newsletters or more similarly, SMS
campaigns that many brands use from POS systems.
FB Unique Advantage
#2 also has potential to leverage social graph data in a future version that would be
a unique FB advantage to help brands contextualize the messages they sent out to
their customers so if you knew a user was located somewhere or had certain
interests you could push certain broadcast messages to them.
Does that make sense? Would you like me to dig further into my logic behind
prioritization or should we move on to some wire-framing / implementation?
INTERVIEWER: That totally makes sense and I do want to move to wireframes, but
first what could some risks be of your potential chosen solution?
Discuss Risks
3. Could become spammy quickly if we don't instill some limits around how
often brands can push wide messages to their customers
4. Privacy and Legal concerns with advertising messages and promotions that
may contain illicit content
INTERVIEWER: Got it - Thanks. What might the user journey of this solution look
like?
Implementation / Wireframing
Because this solution is primarily message based on the consumer side I'll assume
the consumer's interface is basically what you see now in regular messenger. Text,
images and videos, in a conversation thread.
On the business/page side is where this would get interesting. A business would
need to be able to create a message campaign. Almost like building an email
campaign where they could choose their audience. Let's assume they have opt
users in via their website, fb page, emails etc to receive these messages and have
some amount of data on them shared with facebook like what products they
bought.
(DRAW)
A business could then define parameters like I want to send a mass message to all
my customers who liked this post or commented on something last week and let
them know we are running a special on the item this week with a discount code.
The business would write the message, choose their audience segment, and
schedule when the message goes out.
Facebook could charge similar to other SaaS products that offer these types of
features, a monthly fee based on audience size, # of message sends, or access to
advanced features like targeting and scheduling.
To validate if the offering was something businesses wanted we may want to offer
a free trial or free tier of the product first to get a sense from users how they like
the product first. Allow ourselves to collect some baseline engagement activity
metrics like DAU (biz), # of messages being sent etc in order to validate we've met
a need before rolling out pricing.
Does that make sense?
INTERVIEWER: Yes great! How would you measure the success of this feature?
Success Metrics
When rolling out a marketing tool like this I think it's important to consider both
sides of the equation, both the businesses sending the messages and users
receiving the messages. There are specific activity and retention type metrics we
could dig into like do customers act on the messages they get from businesses,
how many blast messages a business is sending out, or after subscribing at what
rate are users unsubscribing from business's messenger lists. Ultimately though I
think I would measure success of this feature from the consumer's side if I had to
pick one. If consumers like the experience then brands can be convinced to do it
more, trained to do it better, and pay for it in the long term.
Does that make sense?
INTERVIEWER: Yes great!
So in summary
By creating a messenger blast feature for businesses communicating with their
customers, we can enable them to connect to their customers through a product
that can be monetized aligning with facebook's mission to build communities and
connect people.
22. Design a stock trading product for Facebook.

Assumptions:
Geo: US
Channels: Both Mobile/Web
Includes Stocks and other kinds of tradable financial instruments
Product for end users and not for FB employees to trade stocks or financial
Instruments
Separate App or integrated within the FB Blue App? Integrated within the Blue App
Constraints:None
Why might this make sense for FB?
Recently with the advent of free retail trading platforms like Robinhood stock
trading has been democratized and common people, young and old, have been
financially empowered. We have also seen the power of communities in driving
market through the example of reddit communities investing in stocks like AMC
and GameStop.
FB already has numerous pages and groups that are dedicated to finances and in
particular stocks and investments. Essentially people are already exchanging
financial information on FB
FB with its large user base is also uniquely positioned and can leverage its
leadership position in the market to come up with a retail stock trading platform for
its users. It can also leverage anonymized data from people's stock trading activity
for better ads targeting or vice-versa
What could be the Goal of this Stock Trading Platform from FB's point of view? Ans
- Give more reasons for people to keep coming back to FB
User Segments:
Retail
People who already invest in stocks or financial instruments
People who want to invest but have not invested yet - Focus here as this group's
needs are largely unmet. These people most likely do not have much investment
knowledge
People who do not want to invest
Institutional side - Investors, brokerages, trading firms
User Needs:
Complex and risk prone process. People just don't know how best to start - This is
the biggest pain point
Lack confidence/trust in the financial markets - FB might be able to solve this but
this likely to be not applicable to the selected segment as the people in this
segment want to invest
Lack cash to invest - Won't be something that FB should solve at this time
Solutions:
FB Easy Invest -User Need Impact: High, Goal Impact: Low
Provide a very simple interface
List only those stocks that have analytical buy ratings
Fixed time horizons - People can sell stocks only when stipulated time horizon for
that stock is met or if it has a sell rating by analysts
FB Roboinvestor -User Need Impact: Medium, Goal Impact: Med
Based on the person's FB activity determine the person's economic profile and
match with a level of risk tolerance
Auto invest to match the risk profile
Community Investing -User Need Impact: High, Goal Impact: High
Let groups create portfolios by picking stocks
gamify: Create a leader board for groups with the most well performing portfolios
Surface these groups to interested people and make these groups filterable by
portfolio performance, investment required and investment objective
Allow people to invest by replicating portfolios
Risks:
People may not understand the risks of investing or the risk of solely depending on
3rd party advice
Legal Risks: FB or Groups can get sued
People may bet their life savings and can incur losses
GTM:
Make people sign disclaimers, T&Cs
Warn them about the risks before every trading activity
Limit Risk: To start with only allow people to invest a small percentage (10%) of
their monthly or yearly earnings
Identify a few groups that are trust worthy (Duration of activity, quality of content,
engagement by members etc.) and launch with those groups first
Detect risky investment behaviour - If high occurrence, come up with features to
prevent this
Then slowly scale and tweak, if required
Metrics:
#MAPeople Investing - NSM
# of portfolios created/month
# of high performing portfolios
# of conversations in Stock Trading Groups
$ invested per person per month
Overall Return since launch
23. Design a better doctor search and visit experience.
Assuming this product is independent of FB product family and we are thinking of
building an independent product.
Goal: Make it easy for users to simplify the appointment process with the doctor.
Success: Number of appointments made, repeat appointments made.
Lets understand who are the key personas involved here:
3. Doctors/Clinics (Excluding dentists)
4. Patients/Users
For this problem, I want to focus on the patient persona and go deeper into their
problems.
The various user segments are based on age:
3. Teenagers (under 21 years)
4. Professionals (21-50 year olds)
5. Older population (50+ year olds)
I want to focus on #2 because they are usually technologically friendly and have a
higher chance of adapting new tools. Teens are too tech-savvy reliant on their
parents or college insurance. 50+ year old population isn't very tech friendly
also.adopting.
In the professionals user segment, I want to go deeper into urban residents in cities
like SF, NYC, Seattle and try and solve their problem to begin with. Primarily a lot
these users are millenials or gen Xer. The ideal target user would be someone who
is tech savvy, has a steady job with employer provided insurance. They usually look
for doctors for regular health check ups, flu, injuries. They value convenience, ease
of connections, and are often price sensitive.
Problems faced by these users:
3. Simple and easy to use appointment setup
4. No repeat patient disclosure form fill up
5. Not sure how much price they have to pay
6. Trust
For the MVP, I want to focus on 1 because without it the product doesn't make
much sense and its a tablestakes requirement and launch it to get to market.
However, I don't think the basics alone would differentiate us given that there are
products like ZocDoc in the market that already are well positioned and do these.
Some other key features I would like to focus on are:
MVP Specific
3. Showing the actual cost of doctor visit. Broken down by co pay and premium
payment.
4. Patient Intake Form: For patients and forwarded copy to the doctor's office.
Differentiating features
3. Better business rating for doctors/clinics
4. Setup immediate telemedicine calls via VC or phone
5. Integration with CVS, Walgreens, GoodRx to get your medicine delivered
6. HIPAA compliant medical records that you can take to any doctor.
7. Integrating CC information so its a true walk in experience for patients and
they don't even have to share their CC in the doctor's office.
I would prioritize these features along the dimension of eng complexity and impact
on users.
Feature #1 and #2 are tablestakes. So we should definitely have them.
Next, I will come up with some wireframe to describe the UX for consumer and
clinics.
For the MVP, I will use something like a PWA to build a prototype product and
capture users via web or apps.
Once the MVP is ready, I will think about go to market strategy. I will think about
focusing on a small set of clinics in SF Bay Area where the target audience is most
likely to visit. Similarly, I will reach out to a small set of users via professional
networks and see if we can get them to use the product.
In order to understand the success of this, I will look at metrics like user activation,
retention, referral from the consumer side. From the Doctor's and clinic side as we
see more success we should observe lift in adoption metrics and NPS scores.
Consumer user journey for wire-frame:
3. User searches for a health condition on Google in an urban city
4. A web link for shows up in SEO search results.
5. User chooses to click on the SEO result and discovers they can find a doctor
in their city. Along with the availability of the doctors.
6. User chooses to fill out their patient intake information and gets a
confirmation that the clinic has their intake form. The clinic gets a fax and
email with the details of the upcoming patient schedules and insurance
details.
7. User shows up for the visit and walk into doctor after showing their ID card.
Once my MVP has shown promising lift in key metrics then I will start investing in
building the differentiating features to make a better experience for users and
attract new users.
24. Design a product to help people read more.
Clarify
Read more what & where? -> Books. Where -> upto candidate Who are we? -> A
big tech company Goal -> to help people read more books
Assumptions
Books which aren't education/work related. Basically books that you read in
your free time
Read doesn't necessarily mean read text, it means looking at and making
sense of what is displayed. and display can be in any form -> text or image or
video
Customers
Kids in age of 5-12 years
Teens
Adults
Elderly
We pick kids in age of 5-12 years for 2 reasons:
a. Habits built in this age can stay forever. And helping kids in this age group to
build reading habit can go a long way in helping them be successful in their life b.
Most book-reading apps such as Kindle, Blinkist etc are more geared towards
adults, primarily working professionals. So it's quite an untapped market
Pain points/Needs
Books are boring & non-immersive
No immediate gratification. For example, kids love games because of instant
gratification, as their is instant reward for their actions
Parents/Teachers suggest books to kids based on their preferences, which
might not align with kid's personal preferences
Solutions
Books are boring & non-immersive
3. App that has "videofied" all books. Imagine how Kindle digitised books, our
app will videofy books. Kid can open app and consume the book in video
format
4. Later we can make it in AR, making it super immersive. We can provide a tool
which kind of projects the entire story in front of the kid in physical space
5. We can also make it metaverse, where they can be part of the story and see it
from the inside
No immediate gratification
3. Reward system -> for each x minutes of video watched, or task completed in
the book, they get points which they can later exchange with their parents for
gifts or game time or any other thing
4. Gift -> we can also add surprise gifts for them as a reward in the story. Can
go well with the VR experience, where they need to find the gift
5. Badges of how well read they are, and then they can showoff to their friends
in school, further incentivising them and other kids to read more
Books based on their preferences
3. Can show quick clips of book summary in beginning. They can either rate (via
voice) or we can track their facial expressions (on how excited or bored they
are towards a book) and based on that we can suggest them books to read
4. We can ask the kind of games/toys they play, and based on that we can
suggest them books. For example - kids playing PUBG might like books
around mission, kids playing with barbie might like fairy tale books, etc.
Product Vision Making book reading more fun than playing games!
Prioritise
3. Videofy the books -> This can be our big USP. Basically we can pick the
major popular books for kids and make video versions of them. Later we can
make AR/VR versions of them as well
4. Reward system -> parents can set goals (we can give suggestions) & rewards
in the app for kids. for each x minutes of video watched, or task completed in
the book, they get points and we reveal rewards based on setting by parents
5. Show 5 samples, and collect kid rating with parents' help in beginning, and
suggest books based on that. Later we can track kids' facial expression or
their usage of app, which books or pieces of book they spending more time
on
Product flow
3. Open app.
4. Parents create kid account & also goals for kid
5. Show 5 samples. Parents ask kid how they like it, based on that they rate
6. Based on the rating, we suggest first book to watch.
7. Kid watch book video and points rewarded to kid
8. Gift unlocked after certain points reached
Metrics
Primary
Daily active usage per user (weighted sum of time spent, tasks done, any
other actions)
Daily active users
Risks
kids watching too much video can put strain on their eyes. Need to eventually
build an independent device that puts less strain, for example Kindle doesn't
put any stress on eyes no matter how long you read.
26. Design an alarm clock for blind people
Design an alarm clock for blind people
Clarifying question:
Does it have to be a physical product or software? Your call
Do I need to think about the long-term implications of the product from a
strategy perspective or a single product? single product
What are the metrics this company will focus on? Engagement
What industry are we in? (start-up, google/Amazon, etc) - Startup
What do we mean by blind? - ppl who cannot see anything, or people who
still have sense of light? - Cannot see anything
What is the functional of the alarm clock ? - Is it primarily used to wake up
people or it can also be used for other events such as time for meals / walks /
workout / eat medicine - lets say all of the above
What is the location this alarm clock is being used at? - Home / daycare /
hospital / old age homes / hotels - could be used anywhere, no constraints.
Now I would like to focus on defining the user groups, then follow that up with key
pain points and priotize a pain point that is more impactful to solve for.
Assumptions:
User can read Braille
User can touch & feel
User can hear
User groups & Pain points:
Primary user group: A blind person (visually impaired - VIP)
Elderly: As a blind person, I am unable to keep track of time and hence I keep
messing up meals
Adult: As a blind person, I am unable to wake up early since my spouse does
night shift or sleeps late and gets bothered with the alarm & loud noises.
Kid: As a blind kid, I don't know when it is time for my parents to come pick
me up from the daycare
Customers: Caregiver: Who is helping VIP (relative/ family) We want the
caregivers to be able to use this device as well since they wont have to buy
multiple products for some function
Based on the above user groups & paint points discussed, I would deprioritize the
elderly and kid use cases. I would like to focus on the adult-use case - since it is
more compelling and is a high impact on the blind and the people around them.
Product Goal:Reliable alarm clock, easy to use for visually impaired and mindful of
your loved ones
Use Case:
Have a basic function that can cater to both blind person & caregivers
The alarm clock should have a way to turn on and off alarm
The alarm clock should also have a time display for caregivers
The alarm clock should have the ability to set up time (hours / mins)
The alarm clock should also have silent / voice-enabled / haptic functions
The alarm clock should be wireless
The alarm clock should have the ability to snooze
Features:
The alarm clock should be voice-activated that allows users to set an alarm,
turn off an alarm, snooze an alarm
The alarm clock should make a confirmation sounds so user understands
alarm is set successfully
Backup on the hardware - if the alarm voice-activated is not working as
expected so we should have braille for the users to set up an alarm and turn
off the alarm .
Success Metrics:
# of times users are using voice assistance to set alarm
# of times users are using snooze capability
# of times user are using haptic mode
27. Design an app to be used in an amusement park.
Clarifying questions (since there is no interviewer to clarify, I will state and make
my assumptions below):
Is this an app for park-goers, Six Flags employees, or some other
stakeholder?
Assumption: this is an app for park-goers
Is there an age-limit on the app?
Assumption: There is no specific age-limit, but it should be family friendly
Will this app be standardized across all Six Flags locations?
Assumption: yes
To design this product, I will explain my thought process step-by-step, following
this structure:
3. I will identify what is the broad goal of Six Flags
4. I will outline some product and business goals
5. I will segment the users
6. I will identify pain points of the user segment
7. I will present some solutions for the pain points
8. I will address any pitfalls that may arise with the solutions
First, the goal of Six Flags is to bring people together across all ages and provide a
safe, fun, and interactive bonding experience.
Therefore, the goal of the app should be to enhance the park experience so that
the users can have a more enjoyable time at Six Flags. From the business side, the
goal should be to focus on the big bucket of "ROI (return of investment)". By this, I
mean, will this app drive more visitors to the park and ultimately drive more
revenue in ticket sales? We can measure this by analyzing the number of parkgoers
pre-and post-app introduction to Six Flags experience.
Since the goal of the product is to enhance the existing park experience, I can think
of three types of users who will be impacted by this product: children, teens, and
parents
Children (6-10yr olds)
Teens (10-19yr olds)
Parents (30-50 yr olds)
I want to highlight that I have assigned a specific age group to each of these three
user buckets to clarify, but please be acknowledged that there could be users who
don't fall into the age group who might identify as one of those buckets.
After giving it some thought, I want to focus on parents as the user segment. The
reason I chose parents is because the main customer base for Six Flags is families
and children and teens often go with parents or parental figures. Also, parents are
more likely to have phones and have access to downloading apps without
restriction compared to children or teens.
Now that I have prioritized parents as the user segment to focus on, let me
brainstorm some pain points that parents who visit Six Flags face.
Parents need to determine which rides their children can go on.
Heigh requirements are not written on paper copies of park maps
What if a family waits in line for a long time only to figure out an hour later
that they cannot go on the ride because the child does not meet the
height requirement? -> time wasted -> less enjoyable park experience
Safety -- is the ride suitable for someone with a particular symptom or
physical condition?
In case a child goes missing or is injured, parents need to call for immediate
assistance.
Currently, parents need to find nearby park employees. Finding an
employee quickly might be hard depending on which area of the park one
is at.
Parents need to design the route so that their children can have fun, but also
they can have fun without exhaustion.
From personal experience, my parents get really tired going to
amusement parks with me because I would beg them to go on more
rides, but they need to take breaks in between.
How can the route be designed so that the parents can get their rest
time, while the children stay engaged?
Prioritize: Scale of impact + Frequency of problem
From these three pain points, I'd like to move forward with the first pain point for
parents -- having to determine which rides are suitable for their kids. The reason I
chose this pain point over the others is when I evaluate the three pain points on
scale of impact and the frequency of the problem, I think that evaluating rides is
something that parents need to do every time they visit a new Six Flags location, or
even the same location. Realistically, not a lot of people are going to memorize
what the height requirements are for each ride unless they visit the same park a
lot. Also, children grow very quickly so unless the parents know the specific height
requirement, they will not know whether their children can go on the same ride the
next time they visit the park. Addressing this pain point can greatly improve the
park experience for the parents and children alike.
Now, let me devise some solutions to address this pain point
Filtering rides feature
choose from a list of symptoms if any of the symptoms apply to your
child
enter height for the child
app will filter and only show attractions on the park map that the child
can go on
pro: more personalized
con: personal data sacrificed
Smart ride recommendation
can show which rides are most popular to kids around the age of the
parent's child
pro: less personal data sacrificed
con: less personalized, some rides might still not be suitable for a
particular child
From these two possible solutions, I will consider which is easier to implement and
can have more impact for the user. I think that filtering rides feature is not any more
difficult to implement than the other solution and will generate bigger impact for
the user. Because the parent can choose specific criteria that apply to their child,
they will get a more personalized and accurate filtering of which rides that their
child can actually go on.
A potential pitfall that might need to be addressed with this solution is how
personal data is handled. If parents choose specific symptoms of their child, that
personal health data is being stored somewhere and Six Flags need to make sure
that such data is not sacrificed.
28. How would you improve Google News?
Clarification: Believe no constraints such as for specific market or for specific

device, No specific goal , can explore what improve means.
Goal: can I assume improve user experience and resolve pain points, and not
around monetization So goal could be to improve engagement and higher
customer satisfaction with google news as a product, so basically more usage, and
lower churn So more DAU
Users:
Consumers based on how they consume:
3. Deep dive into news reports in a specific area of their choice
4. Just want the daily trends and main news
News media: News print Individuals and smaller entities
many times users fall into both categories such as deep dive into sports but prefer
the trends for other areas.
Look at pain points: Trendy news consumers:
Not easy to follow news that highlights my topic of interest: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1
No time to read each news: 4
Am used to consuming news via images or videos and dont like reading on
say twitter or reddit:
genz prefers images over text and reading: 2 or 3
News is too boring and depressing sometimes: 4
Information overload: 4
Heavy news readers
hard to discover the news that I am interested in: 3
hard to decide the best source for my topics: 2
I am interested in discussions and comments and social aspect of engaging
with other fans or on these topics: 2
want to follow in depth but hard to follow and discover the right article and
read time: 2
don't know read time and whether its worth my time to read: 1
Prioritize:
Googles strengths + Lack of other solutions + intensity of the pain point + volume
of users
Hence picking the news consumers who want trending news topics:
Vision: Provide easily consumable bites of trending news topics , that are easily
available and assimilated, as well as news that matters to me
Trendy news consumers:
Not easy to follow news that highlights my topic of interest: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1
No time to read each news: 4
Am used to consuming news via images or videos and dont like reading on
say twitter or reddit:
genz prefers images over text and reading: 2 or 3
News is too boring and depressing sometimes: 4
Information overload: 4
Use cases:
When to recommend
3. Google home news
4. While browsing google.com in the morning or evening or while searching a
topic
5. If someone subscribes to daily news digest
6. If I open my android phone and search some news topic, provide an option to
enable daily news via google home or else emailed/delivered to you easily
7. When there is an active news alert to share
What to recommend
3. Personalize based on my search patterns and links that I have clicked and
read online (such as a sport lover or local news lover based on location)
4. Use ML for recommendations
5. Active news alert
How to show recommendations and How user can engage more
3. Phone notification
4. on tap opens up
5. syndicated from select news media, but possibly reworded headlines? (use
ML to reword headlines)
6. Allow users to like news topics with a like button
7. Something like a newsfeed if I then go into the newsfeed
8. Real time newsfeed updates
9. Ability to share
10. Prioritize videos and pictures over text in addition to headlines
10x -> Combine social media links as well such as twitter hashtags for news topics
and links to reddit Share your own video or audio opinion and join a clubhouse chat
from news, use as a starting point to entry into social media chatter
Measure of success: DAU users using the newsfeed or accessing the news
Pitfalls: Did not consider possible innovations on the end of news creators, but
given google is not a social platform rather an aggregator chose not to focus on
that end
Did not consider the importance of showing multiple sources or personalizing, as
well as how to deal with possibly sites that peddle fake news. So should prioritize
news from channels considered trustworthy and give control to users.
29. How would you improve Gmail?

3. Do we want to focus on front end or backend?
1. Front end
4. Do we want to focus on any particular platform? For ex: Site, mobile, apps
1. Interviewer: Desktop
4. Is there anything tools on gmail that you'd like me to focus on? For ex: Meet,
Hangouts, Notes
1. Interviewer: Just the main product
4. Are there any specific product buckets that you'd like me to go through? For
ex: Sign up flows, login flows, security, product experience, sign out flow,
recommending other G suite products, up-selling G-One subscriptions, smart
predictions, cross-usage in other G-suite products
1. Interviewer: Just the main product experience
Thank you for that. Before we dive into the what why and how -- lets understand
the function of the app.
What is Gmail: Gmail is primarily a comm tool people from different areas of life use
in order to send and receive comm emails from other people and businesses.
3. The primary purpose of Gmail is to help users receive, create, send, and
delete emails.
4. Secondary purpose can be found in using gmail as a pathway to create a user
profile on different products such as Facebook, Twitter, or Amazon.
5. A Tertiary purpose of gmail is to create an address book of contacts, search
and sort through emails, prioritize them and to organize a user's calendar
based on events that will transpire as part of transactions on Gmail.
Let me pause here to organize my thoughts as we head into what it really means to
a user to perceive Gmail as new and improved -
---- After a pause of 2 minutes ----
Okay so we now know that our objective is to improve the front end user
experience for Desktop Gmail users, primarily on the main product page
In order to do this, let's look at the different demographics that use Gmail today --
3. School going students aged 13 to 17
4. Young adults aged 18 to 29
5. Professionals aged 30-65
6. Professionals and retirees aged 65 and beyond
While the uses of each of these cohorts varies widely depending on their purpose
to be on Gmail, let's highlight some of the core experiences for these users -
School going students aged 13 to 17. These users have to sign up for Gmail for
school work
submitting assignments
receiving meeting schedules with teachers
joining Meet for classes
Young adults aged 18-29 and Professionals aged 30 to 65
Some school work
All formal communications
interviews for potential jobs
Accessing social media and e-commerce accounts
account creation
password resets
updates
calendar invites for social gatherings
keeping in touch with social circles
keeping in touch with clients, customers and employees
Sending and receiving attachments
Professionals and retirees aged 65 and beyond
Similar reasons as above
With that through elimination of repeating cohorts, let's focus on solving for the
first two user groups
With this let's look into the activities that one may perform as part of the two main
user cohorts
School going students aged 13 to 17
These users have basic needs which are easily accomplished by Gmail
today
Some other requests for this cohort could be
Help with assignments
Fact checks
Reminders for assignment submissions, saving draft work, joining a
class
Receiving feedback from teachers
Receiving comms on next Meet event
Student conversations - group discussions
Young adults and Professionals
There are a few things to note when talking about this cohort such as:
Sending and receiving attachments
Scheduling events or receiving one
Contact books and optimization
Actual user conversations - threaded emailing
I'd like to focus on the conversations aspect since this is an overlap between both
the user groups
When we look at Gmail today -
3. This is an archaic concept for the Young adults of the day with Inbox, Sent,
Drafts and Deleted items
4. This cohort is actively moving over to other conversation platforms such as
Messenger, Whatsapp, Telegram or simply messages
5. There is a recognized need for
1. Attachments that can be only created on Desktop
2. Group discussions
3. Ease of usage
4. Personal information page
5. Overall: Making Gmail more conversational than an actionable tool with
formal tones
With the above pain points discussed I'd like to propose a few improvements that
relate to these pain points:
3. Allow phone number integration with an email
1. Users can send you an email using your phone number
1. Cost: Low -- because we already have a 2 factor auth set up in place
for users
2. Benefit: High -- users will adapt to this easily
3. Risk: Low -- users understand that the phone number will now be
used to easily email people in their contact list
8. Remove the inbox, sent, drafts, spam and deleted 2. Display a new chats
page where users have a conversations list that allows them to view and reply
to 1:1 and 1:many conversations 1. Cost: Low -- some format of this already
exists for hangouts 2. Benefit: High -- retain users from competition like
Telegram and Whatsapp while still delivering the attachments that can be
saved to photos, drive 3. Risk: Medium -- user adoption may take some time
since inherently users associate Gmail for formal communication
9. Allow users to use personalized chat tools such as Gifs, stickers and memojis
3. Let users get creative in group chats for assignments while sharing work
and sentiments related to it 1. Cost: Medium -- integration with existing tools
2. Benefits: High -- users will be able to communicate without the formal tone
which is what we strive to do in the improvement 3. Risks: Medium --
inappropriate sentiments shared, miscommunication of non-verbal
sentiments
Quick recap -
Of the three improvements proposed,
#1 to add phone number integration is a great way to let users start communicating
with each other without needing their email address
#2 will allow users to move into an informal setting where creating and sharing
work while remaining in a group setting helps them review carefully in a threaded
messaging format so that users do not have to go back and forth on a single email
to reply to
#3 will add personalization of sharing sentiment
In order to move to next steps, I'd like to rearrange the proposed improvements in
order of priority -
#1 Threaded chat
#2 Rich text
#3 Phone number integration
Since we are looking to improve the Desktop experience - we can let go of the
phone number integration for now
To set this into a roadmap, I'd like to go with creating a new page with a chat based
message system for users with some elements of rich text for the MVP
Go to market strategy -
For early adoption - I'd like to suggest users with more than 4 email addresses and
more than 4 back and forth emails to start viewing the discussion in a threaded
format that easily allows them to see how using a chat system eases them.
Some metrics I would look into -
Adoption rates
Stickiness with the feature once users move to the new product
New initiations made from the product
Retention for the new product
30. You are the PM for Booking.com under the payments Product team.
How would you introduce cryptocurrency as a new payment method?
Clarifying question
5. Why? Does booking.com have data on demand for this new feature? Let's say
no
6. Does booking.com have any specific goal with this new feature? Improve
revenue or Improve user experience ( provide flexibility in payments or
expand user base dealing with crypto, etc.) Let's say targetting new users
who want to deal with crypto
(I don't know if this is to be approached as a product design question) I would
approach the introduction of cryptocurrency as a new payment method in the
following way:
5. Conduct market research: Get an idea of the current demand for this feature,
and understand competitor offerings, and money on the table.
6. Identify key stakeholders and partners: Identify key stakeholders both
internally and externally such as cryptocurrency payment processors and
exchanges, and establish partnerships to ensure smooth integration and
compliance with regulatory requirements.
7. Develop a value proposition: Develop a clear value proposition for customers,
highlighting the benefits of using cryptocurrency as a payment method, such
as increased security and speed of transactions.
8. Develop a phased roll-out plan: Develop a phased roll-out plan to ensure a
smooth transition to the new payment method. for eg- with a limited set of
blockchains, and cryptocurrencies and then expand to wider support post
feedback from customers.
9. Compliance: Crypto regulatory landsacpe are not that standardized and is
constantly evolving. So, It's necessary to take this into account.
10. Communicate to customers: Create tutorials, videos, and ads educating
customers about the new feature
11. Monitoring: Monitor adoption, issues, and track key metrics such as # of
users transacted using a crypto wallet, cannibalization of other payment
methods, $ amount of crypto transacted, DAU, WAU, etc.
12. Wallet management: Manage Wallet for booking.com + Manage user wallets
for users opting for custodian services.
13. Gather feedback and improve: Continuously improve the payment method, by
adding new features, providing better customer service, and by making the
experience as seamless as possible
31. Design a solution for attending large events/concerts
Clarification - is it Uber that is building the feature? Answer: Yes Assuming if Uber
is the one building this feature, I would start with if and how does the feature help
Uber's mission and north star metrics. Uber's mission is to provide reliable
transportation around the world and the primary metric that i can think on a high
level is Number of rides , Number of drivers and from business revenue
perspective revenue per ride, revenue per rider and driver. I picked revenue per
ride because it encompasses distance, time spent on a ride as a part of the
revenue generated from a ride. I picked number of rides per rider and number of
drives per driver as its a health indicator of the business.
Overall, I believe this feature aligns with Uber's mission of providing reliable
transportation to people around the world. And this will impact the top level north
star metrics as (1) It might bring in more riders, drivers and if built right an
alternative transportation mechanism for events. On an average every city has at
least a few large scale public events during a week or mostly during the weekend.
The next part I would like to delve deeper is which all segments would benefit from
a feature like this. To do that I am going to start off with a customer segments and
follow it up with a journey map to identify pain points and severity of the pain point
for different customer segments.
Segments that come to the top of my mind are
5. Families with kids going to an event
1. Might need strollers in the car, car seats
2. Cannot walk long distances
3. Cannot wait for long times in the car as the kids will get cranky
8. Couples without kids heading to an event
1. Might want t participate in pre event parties - Tailgating
2. Post event parties - Alcohol might be involved
3. Might be comfortable waiting for some duration either in the highway,
near the event, waiting for parking
8. People attending an upscale highly dressed event
1. Might need chauffeur driven nice car
2. Have to look good and energized and hence don't want to wait behind
the wheel for a long time
3. Have a fixed time on how long the event lasts
4. there might be post party events
9. Singles meeting up with friends going to events during a weekend/weekday
evening
1. Might be comfortable waiting in traffic in highway, near the event, parking
etc.
2. Might be interested in post party events
7. People with mobile disabilities.
In terms of the segment that will have the least impact on the overall metrics are
people attending an upscale highly dressed event. They might already have
chauffeurs, have a specific liking on the kind of car they want. The TAM for this
segment is less and the number of events of this kind might be less. I am making
the assumption here as I don't hear much about these kind of events and bias on
my part is likely.
In terms of customer journey, I can think of the following stages
5. Book the ticket to an event, block the calendar.
1. Book for friends
6. Making plans with other people on how to get there, what accessories to
carry, what to do post party
7. On the day of the event or prior, check out the distance to the venue and plan
when to start considering the traffic etc.
8. Leave the house
1. Wait on the highway - Get tired
2. Wait near the venue - Get tired
3. Wait on entry to the parking lot
4. Drop the other folks if traveling together near the gate
5. Get shocked by looking at the parking prices
10. Park and search for family and friends
11. Wait for getting food and make way back to the seat
For the purposes of the initial launch, I will focus on families without kids, singles
out looking to have fun with friends.
The biggest pain points I can summarize from the customer journey map are
5. Waiting to get to the venue
6. Post party risks
7. Increased carbon emissions
Solutions that I can think of are -
5. Curated multi mode transportation journey that intelligently uses public
transport, uber's current suite of features from the pick up point near the
house, drops the passenger at a public transportation station, picks up the
passenger once they reach the station nearest to the venue and drops them
at the venue. The journey map can also suggest the passenger that walking
might be a faster way to get to the venue if they choose to do so from the
train or bus station near the venue. Customers can purchase tickets for the
public transportation while they book the curated trip itself to avoid waiting in
line at the kiosks in bus or train station. Customers can pre-book a uber back
as well at a discounted price. The discount will need to be calculated as a
number that doesn't negate the cost and leaves $ to both uber and drivers.
1. Advantages are in order of pain points
1. Reduced waiting time in highways. More energy to enjoy at the event
1. As a caveat carpool might not work out as most of the events are
during the weekends or weekday evenings post the car pool
hours
2. saves money from parking fee that can go towards the uber price
3. reduced carbon emissions
10. Incentivizing people to carpool to the event. Advertise to people that they can
pick up passengers going to that specific event at designated stops and earn
$ on their way to the venue. 2. Advantages are 1. $ earned that can go
towards parking fees 2. Gets more drivers into the uber system. Few of them
~X% might become part time uber drivers 3. Carpool might reduce the
number of cars on road thereby saving on emissions.
11. Uber bus shuttle service in partnership with the event organizers from
different parts of the city. With buses departing post the event with some
reserved form post party times. 3. Advantages are 1. Reduced waiting time.
More energy to enjoy the event 2. Might reduce the number of cars on road -
saving emissions 3. saves parking $ 4. Safe in case alcohol is involved.
In terms of prioritization, I would remove option 3 - as uber has to build out a bus
fleet and drivers. Drivers need a special license for driving buses.
Between option 1 and 2 - I would experiment first with option 2 - primarily with the
incentive that it increases the number of drivers in the uber eco system who might
become drivers during events or even outside. Secondly the public infrastructure
buses and trains might also be already crowded with event goers and people might
not want to hustle and get tired on their way. Additionally option 2 might also be
relatively simple to build and our hypothesis on the problem, product and market.
Not prioritizing food delivery inside the event for now.
Metrics - Apart from # of rides, $ per ride, I would also track how many new drivers
and riders use Uber for this feature, how many return to uber later as a driver and
rider.
32. How would you improve YouTube for creators?

https://youtu.be/SBCDGbULUwo
33. How would you build a product for movies on Facebook?

Facebook’s mission statement is to build community, so any product related to
movies that Facebook builds should have that in mind.
I’ll start by looking at the lifecycle of a movie and then some current pain points
that people might have to think about opportunities for a movies product.
The lifecycle of a movie revolves around creation (script, filming, casting, acting),
production, and distribution (streaming services vs theatres).
An idea for creation could be helping users collaborate or create original content
together on Facebook. This is like the Youtube Symphony Orchestra or HitRecord
by Joseph Gordon Levitt where individuals with different talents can collaborate
together to create a movie. Given that Facebook is a social network, it can easily
leverage existing products like Groups to help people find each other and Watch
(Videos) to distribute the final product. Creators right now who aren’t in the movie
business already have a hard time doing this otherwise.
An idea for production could be crowdfunding for popular movies. Facebook
already has a Fundraisers product that can help users donate to any cause
whether its a non-profit or a personal fundraiser. The first mainstream
crowdfunded movie, Veronica Mars, was done on Kickstarter and is already a viable
business (Indiegogo has the business as well). People who are passionate about
movies otherwise would not be able to support movies that they want to be
created.
An idea for distribution could be movie ticketing. Facebook could also help you
connect to friends who have liked events (events related to showings of movies) to
help you find people to watch movies with. People who like watching movies often
have a hard time finding someone to go with. Facebook could have a leg up on
Fandango because it can help users discover movies through trailer videos that
users have liked in their newsfeed shared by friends or promoted by movie theatres
or through their Watch product where users could already be watching movie
trailers and show intent to watch that movie.
Another idea for distribution could be showing movies on Facebook’s existing
Watch product, which would compete with Youtube movies and other streaming
services. People have a hard time discovering relevant content, and Facebook has
a lot of data on your interests that could help solve this. Facebook could also
create live “watch parties” as they have for other videos as a differentiating point.
However, this might be harder since existing video content tends to be shorter on
Facebook and has an increasing majority of mobile users. This is also harder
because it’s extremely competitive, due to multiple players in the market, the need
for original content to stand out, and long distribution rights for films that are tied
up with other services. Facebook could possibly differentiate itself with shorter
original content movies, but this would need a lot of time and money to build.
To narrow down on which product I will ultimately build, I’d go back to my original
goal of making sure that the product builds community, addresses current pain
points related to movies, how it might leverage existing Facebook technology, the
effort to build an MVP, and competition.
Because of the latter two conditions, I would rule out showing movies on Facebook
since it the highest barrier to entry based on effort and competition and that it
doesn’t address user pain points or build community as much as the other options.
Similarly, the creation/collaboration idea requires more offline work that can’t be
facilitated through Facebook and makes it a difficult product to MVP.
I think movie ticketing and crowdfunding similarly address all my conditions but
crowdfunding on Facebook could be more impactful than Kickstarter and
Indiegogo which are niche products, unlike Fandango which is ubiquitous.
The MVP of the crowdfunding product for movies would be very similar to the
Fundraiser product that already exists. The person fundraising would start by
creating a fundraiser but we could create a special format for movies where it
would include a storyline, movie trailers and gifts (free movie tickets, meet the
actors) for different donation sizes. Once live, the user would share it to their
newsfeed and profile. We could cross-promote it to other Facebook products like
Newsfeed, Groups, Events related to movies, and Watch and build virality around
the fundraising event among friends of friends lists. We could emphasize the
community aspect by including Q&A with the fundraiser and other related
Facebook groups and events that could spin-off from the fundraiser.
34. How many ads should Facebook Newsfeed display?

The opening of people spending a lot time on Facebook is way too long. Almost
half time of the video.
The analysis of Facebook business model should be very brief. People know
Facebook business model.
Maximize the ads display while balancing the user experience is the key. She can
drive to this point much faster.
Segmentation of user group feels irrelevant to the question.
I would answer the question in a different way.
Ads revenue is the single most revenue stream for Facebook. So we can safely
assume Facebook found out the answer for this question long time ago and is
continuing to tweak it to make it better everyday. For this question, I think we're
pretending that we travel back to the time when we tried to answer the question for
the first time.
Maximize the ads display while balancing the user experience is the key. With that
in mind, I'll do the following.
I would devise a test showing ads in 10%(1 ads every 10 posts) to 50%(1 ads every
2 posts) of the newfeeds, in incremental of 10%. I will be doing this test in a few
user groups, alternating ads contents. What I'm trying to find out is when the ads
CTR is plateaued. I will also measure the average session time for each group. I
would assume too many ads won't provide interesting and relevant information to
the user. User will shorten their session time. Then I'll see at what percentage the
CTR plateaued. The I'll try to correlate these two information together and try to
figure out what's the best percentage of newsfeed to display the ads.
Once we have a baseline information, I would push this to a much large simple
group, by monitoring more variables like user age, which category ads(grocery,
electronics, events) and which format(Text, photo, videos). Still paying attention to
CTR to see any impact.
35. Build a new feature for natural disasters

Approach:
7. clarify and communicate baseline assumptions.
8. communicate how solving for this will align to FB's mission.
9. define the user groups we are solving for
10. Define the user journey pre/during/after natural disasters 4.a) pick a user
group we want to go with
11. identify the painpoints for this user groups user journey
12. think about solutions
13. prioritize and elaborate
1) clarify and communicate baseline assumptions. Q: Can you tell me why FB is
interesting in building a feature for Natural Disasters? Is it part of a broader bet at
the company? or should i play the role of a PM that is driving this forward
independently? A: Assume this is a standalone brand new initiative; Q: natural
disaster = all disasters; e.g. earthquake, hurricane, etc? A: dealer's choice. Q:
prioritize all for now; Q: presuming this is product feature within the Facebook App;
e.g. not physical support for natural disasters A: weird question but dealer's
choice.
2) communicate how solving for this will align to FB's mission. FB's mission is to
give people the power to build communities and bringing the world closer together.
A natural diaster presents an even more elevated urgency and need for Facebook's
products to stay connected, check in and get the latest status updates from
friends, family and the communities.
7. In the past Facebook has successfully deployed features such as Safety
Checks during Nepal earthquake. These have shown they can save lives,
keep people connected and from product perspective strong PMF given the
features is still around after many years, and have directionally impacted FB
brand metrics (assumption)
Now we want to further expand FB's role in supporting our users and community
during these unfortunate natural diaster incidents; we think developing these good
for the world features will also help with long term engagement/retention/brand on
FB
3) define the user groups we are solving for because i jump into the user groups; i
want to note that a natural diaster feature would comprise of Pre (preparation of
natural diaster), During, and Post(what happens after, and impact) For now, i want
to keep all 3 in mind; and determine later;
I think there are three plus one user groups today
7. People that are in need of support during natural diaster
8. Friends and family that are worried about the people during the diaster
9. Search and Rescue groups ; e.g. Police., responders
10. theres an additional group that we can serve which is preparers (how to
prepare for a natural diaster)
4) the user journey
7. People that are in need of support during natural diaster
1. Immediate panic, want to know the news updates, injury/health, what/how
to get to safety, get notified of rescue, and reunite with loved ones, know
the impact
8. Friends and family that are worried about the people during the diaster
1. similar; Immediate panic, want to know the news updates, estimated
impact; know whether their friends and family are safe or not.
8. Responders:
1. need to get notified or natural diaster, find/identify users that need help,
get them rescued, communicate impact
8. theres an additional group that we can serve which is preparers (how to
prepare for a natural diaster) which is reminding, notififying and providing
relevant information
5) identify the painpoints for this user groups user journey looking at these users;
there are some overlapping painpoints of
7. Awareness: do people know whats going on, notified?
8. Information asymmetry; can we provide the most relevant and updated
information to users, impact
9. Connections: can we connect user groups who are actively looking for each
other?
Prioritize Connections jobs to be done; which is connecting people to the latest
information and status updates.
7. during a time of diaster; few things happen Low bandwidth as everyone is
trying to use their phone / connections at the same time.
8. chaos, things happen very quickly, checking different sources;
9. not single source of information/communication channel.
6) solutions
7. Leverage FB's current capabilities, make connections during time of need
more seamless and streamlined: e.g.
1. Default users into a dedicated Facebook Group with other users with
posted status, news, emergency responders that can provide update.
borrowing FB Neighbors feature ; broadcast if you need help
2. Default users into a dedicated Facebook messenger with other users with
posted status, news, emergency responders that can provide update.
3. trigger notification system to their predefined emergency contact; default
these users to messenger group with status updates and location
tracking on . ;
10. offline (if user not able to get to internet)
1. evaluate bluetooth technology to connect with nearby phones and
communicate;
2. provide system for responders to identify who is offline and provide their
last known location for search and rescue
9. Information hub for natural diaster preparedness especially those that have
loction with high risk
7) prioritize and elaborate
7. I think the product i would build prioritize is 1) leverage FB's current
capabilities, making connections during time of need more seamless and
streamlined instead of building something completely new.
8. guardrail metrics for us are around privacy, treading tightly on opt-in vs
defaulting; false positive of what is considered natural diasters; and because
these are fairly rare and sensitive events; its going to be hard for us to do a/b
testing and such.
36. You are a PM for Spotify. How would you increase user
engagement?
7. Are we specifically concentrating on improving features for app or
spotify.com? (Assuming app)
8. Are we concentrating user engagement in specific location? (demographics)
(Assuming USA)
*Takes 10 seconds to gather thoughts on the approach
Approach: I will start off with spotify's goals as a company, User buckets, user pain
points today, solve for the pain points, Metrics for new feature, evaluation.
Goal: Goal of spotify as a company is to provide high quality audio streaming
services to users and help them discover and share new music among millions of
tracks available on the app.
Users: -> Ages 15 - 35 -> Ages 35+ I divided the user groups by ages as the youth
tends to listen to more variety of music or curious to discover more on the app as
opposed to older generation. I'm concentrating on ages 15-35 at present to list out
features that would increase user engagement.
*Checks in with interviewer : Does that sound good? do you have anything specific
in mind that you want me to concentrate on? (Assuming no questions from
interviewer)
Pain points: To list top pain points with spotify users:
7. Users would like to play same music at same time - For example, me and my
friend go to gym everyday and both like the same workout music to be played
while we workout.
8. Low audio quality compared to competitor music apps like apple music
9. Introduce something exciting apart from just listening to music that lets user
come back to the app to check on.
Prioritization: I'd like to prioritize the above pain points before diving into solution
for each of them. Prioritizing using "Stack ranking" technique. Priority 1: Feature to
let user play same music at same time Priority 2: Introduce new feature that lets
user come back to app multiple times Priority 3: Fix the audio quality I chose this
priority because the priority 1 is something that could be used by a lot of users
based on market research. Priority 2 would help to bring some curiosity in users as
to new feature.
*Checks in with interviewer to clarify any questions for priority before solutioning.
Solution:
7. Add a feature/button to let user select a song and pop-up display of contacts
with whom they want to share the music at the time
8. Introduce feature maybe called "groove" where user can upload a ~10 sec
video instead of a display picture to the song that they are obsessed with(if I
may say) or grooving to on a specific day. Making this feature discoverable by
family, friends will have them coming back for more updates on what their
friends are listening to and also might help them discover new songs
9. Introduce spatial audio for better sound quality experience. This can be
applied to premium membership
Metrics: -> Number of users clicked on new feature to listen music at same time ->
Number of profile video updates per day on each account -> Number of clicks on
each profile video
Evaluation: I understand that mentioning multiple pain points, or multiple solutions
might deviate the interview a little. I should probably pick one pain point, provide a
solve for that and concentrate on one north star metric. Also, Priority 1 and 2 would
contribute more towards user engagement compared to priority 3.
37. How would you improve Google Assistant?

Clarification: By Improvement we could delve into either improving Monetization,
User Engagement, Experience or Retention.
Project Goal: In particular letz focus on improving User Engagement/Experience
which may also pave way into monetizing - cuz the way I see it is to put out
multiple configurations /packages in the market, and allow users to choose and pay
for the services. Its as simple as hiring a full time assistant vs part time. U pay for
the service rendered.
Product Vision: Google Mission is to Organize World data such that it is universally
accessible.
Google Assistant is direct derivative of the mission stmt, where it organizes data
and plays the true personal assistant aiding its Human Master (User).
User Personnas: I believe it has great scope to be part of every household- so
typically any household member could use this. Including adults, Senior citizens or
silent Gens, People with Accessibility Needs, Kids.
I also see great potential for this to make into professional environment- where it
can (not replace) share responsibilities with personal Human Assistants -
especially for Exec. Management.
For today's discussion, letz focus on developing feature sets that will impact/be of
great use to our dear Silent Gens who I believe will benefit out of this technology at
greater length.
Existing Features that interest me:
The base version out there in the market has some excellent feature sets such as:
Find my phone, Start my day, Read the news, Open apps with voice commands,
Control all aspects of the smart Home, Send Voice messages, Language
Translation, Hands free NEtflix watching, Appointment reminders.
while these are cool features to have, there are tonnes of space for improvements.
User Journey:
As a typical User, the below are the areas that I will need help from a Human
assistant and we can see out of these what all we could automate using
Technology.
Manage Mails, Phone Calls
Schedule Appointments
Pay Bills
Do Groceries
Pick up Laundry
Send gifts/wishes to family and friends on Bdays/Anniversaries
May be walk my dog / watch my kids
Improvements:
Now letz map some of the real life services that a human assistant provides to
what Technology - Google Assistant can provide (leveraging some of the Artificial
Intelligence and Digital technologies)
Message Manager: Manage Mails and phone Calls - Manage Emails and Voice
Messages This feature shall sort emails by context, sender and date. It will
summarize a conversation and read it out -more like hearing voice messages when
requested by User.
The feature shall also compose replies (Voice to text) and send replies
(immediately/on schedule date and time)
The assistant can also be connected to the phones to parse thru an read out voice
messages.
Given to think about - this can also be integrated to chats.
A user can set preferences over what messages/mails must be accessed by the
assistant and what triggers notifications.
Appointment Scheduler : Schedule Appointments - This feature I am envisioning in
a length to be integrated to schedulers at Hospitals, Salons, Vets etc;
Assistant shall pick up orders/command from the User, work around User's Google
Calendar and send appointment request to Doctor's Office or say Hair Cuttery.
Once an appointment requested is accepted, Google Calendar shall reflect the
same and reminder shall be provided(based on config)
Pay Bills - this is mostly automated in most cases- like gas, water, electricity.. so i
am not investing much on this however the technology can be connected to google
pay and used int he next wishlist - Do Groceries.
Grocery Manager: Do groceries: Assistant can integrate with Smart
Fridge/appliance and on regular intervals (if we could have a mechanism to
collect/store expiration dates of previously purchased items) place online grocery
orders (pre-built cart - based on shopping History)
Pick up laundry and Walk my dog/babysit my kid - I would skip.
Event/Celeb Manager: Send Gifts/Wishes to Families/Friends - This can be
achieved via Google Calendar (if you have a calendar / events reminder set) and
with an integration of Google Pay - where you can issue Flowers, gift baskets,
Chocolate Boxes Shopping and Delivery Orders.
Given that the list or potential of Google Assistant can go on and on, letz stop here
and prioritize what we would really like to get out first and then build iteratively.
Prioritization: By applying MOSCOW's law while Considering factors like Reach,
Impact, Confidence and Effort,
Despite the moon shot ideas and complexities involved in establishing the whole
ecosystem, I think our :
Message Manager is a M
Appointment Scheduler is a H as well
Grocery Manager is a L
Event/Celeb Manager is a M
Letz focus on Appointment Scheduler
Voice activated command to invoke Scheduler
Q&A based interaction to capture - purpose of appointment, who to meet, when to
meet, where to meet
Integrate with Google Calendar to check personal availability
Search by Q&A results - for example: Dr.Joe at NYC.
Send automated appointment request - we can look into building automated bot
calls to the doc office as a starter.. but the long pole is where it could read thru
Doc's appointment schedule and Place itself on free slots.
Collect any instructions from the other end regarding the appointment - for
example: the Doc's assistant may say - do not eat anything before the visit -
fasting samples needed.
update User(Master) Calendar with special instructions and appointment
confirmation.
Build message Queue to relay appointment confirmation when invoked next.
Send/read out reminders (configured) 1 day prior to appointment, 1 hr prior to
appointment.
Metrics: No of automated appointments made No of appointment successfully
completed No of Scheduling Conflicts encountered
Summary: Google Assistant can be improved by introducing automating
appointment scheduler, that shall allow users to manage all their meetings,
followups.
38. Improve the gifting experience on Amazon.
https://youtu.be/Nel-Sn12BpQ
39. How would you improve the worst post-booking experience for
OpenTable?
Mission: unknown Goal: Seamless restaurant booking
Users
7. person making the booking 2.Person part of the booking
8. Restaurant/merchant
Focus on person making the booking
Pain points/Features:
7. Plan my trip (prebook uber, decide parking, carpool, babysitter)
8. Add preferences (ask attendees for preferences - vegetarian, keto, gluten
free, accessible, dog friendly, child seat)
9. Recommendations of other restaurants with reservations available at same
time slot
10. Not being able to be seated until everyone arrives —> find my friends
11. Review menu before arriving as restaurant
Prioritization 3. Low input from user, can be tested on all bookings
7. common/shared requirement for most bookings
8. Common but can be done at restaurant or via free text message
9. Marks opportunity unknown, requires users to learn social feature
10. Less common, out of opentable control. Restaurant policy
Metrics 3. Click through / bookings completed (# of bookings not canceled and
completed)
7. Initial usage/ acquisition - use of add on (trips created, requests created)
MAU active means users who make 1 booking
bookings
cancellations
40. What's your least favourite product and why?
https://youtu.be/wRTqUd5iXVg
My Least Favorite Product: Amazon Kindle

I have both: amazon kindle 8th generation (with backlight) and without backlight
for many years now and also part of kindle unlimited program. And would be having
more than 200-300 books on it already ranging across various topics
What i don't like about kindle is that, its operating system has not evolved since
many years. It's as difficult to operate as it was when it was launched. Infact now i
don't prefer to browse the books on kindle, instead buy them on amazon website /
app and then read them on kindle.
There are various customer use cases which can be improved like:
Search within a book
Search for a book
Sharing Notes
Automatic removal of books from device once i have read them / or atleast a
setting which user can turn on / off
41. Design a tablet by Facebook
https://youtu.be/Mj6fYLgU600
42. Design a refrigerator for kids.

https://youtu.be/28ievyyQMzE
43. Re-design the airport experience.

I would like to speak loud to narrow the scope of this question so I can be effective
in identifying a solution to the problem on hand. Hope that is OK.
You mentioned, “Re-design the airport experience”. Is there a goal for this re-
design exercise? Some top goals that come to my mind are the following. Please
guide me so I can set it and we can proceed from there.
“Increase the number of passengers who travel to and from this airport”
“Improve customer satisfaction”
“Get into the top 5 in national or international ranking for the best airport”
“Increase the number of airlines who operate from this airport”...
Of all the goals, I will pick the first goal I noted -- “Increase the number of
passengers who travel to and from this airport”.
With the goal set, I want to make some assumptions and please give me a redirect
if you want me to alter anything I say.
This is for an international airport. The airport is located in a location that makes it
a very preferred as the hub. There is no limitation to the technology or money at
this time. Privacy is not of concern at this time.
I want to list a few things to help me think through the user profiles and then look
at their pain points and list some possible solutions. Is that OK?
The user profiles for folks you use an international airport are SO many. But let me
just list a few and we can pick one.
7. Travelers: Business, or Personal - Time is of importance
8. Airport Staff - Traffic tower, Security officers, cleaners,
9. Govt officials - Immigration officers, police officers,
10. Vendors - book store, food court, etc.
11. Airlines and Airline staff, Airline crew etc. food suppliers, etc.
Each of the user profiles is interesting. However, for the sake of time and coverage,
I want to pick Travelers.
Some pain points for Travelers:
7. Getting to the gate and exiting from the gate takes a lot of time
1. I would divide this problem to be
1. The architecture of the Airport
2. Logistics at the airport
ii) Logistics at that Aiport
2. **Lines to check-in and drop the luggage**
3. **Lines to complete security checks, immigration**
4. **Lines to board the aircraft**
Exiting:
8. Lines to get out of the aircraft
9. Customs and Immigration for passengers
10. Wait and walk time to get baggage from baggage claim
11. Getting out of the airport
12. Not comfortable enough during transit - Food, entertainment, sleep, services
such as massage, meditation room, prayer room, etc.
13. Not able to step out to get fresh air during international transit - stuffy, strict
policies for entry and exits
There are of course a huge list of pain points for travelers. But I would rate the time
to get into the aircraft and getting out of an airport to be a place where the airports
can make a difference.
What I want to propose is a Smart Cart at the Airport that is going to be your
companion to help you get in and out of the airport in minutes.
Let me explain what the Smart cart can do.
8. It can scan your documents
9. It can scan, weigh, and carry your luggage
10. It has compartments that can be divided to check-in and carry on parts
11. It can auto-drive and doesn’t need to be pushed
Traveler’s Journey up to entry to the gate at the aircraft:
8. Get out of the car/transportation at the entrance of the airport
9. A smart cart will come up to the passenger
10. The passenger puts the luggage on the cart for check-in compartment and/or
put the luggage for carry-on in the carry-on compartment of the Smart Cart.
11. The cart has an infra-red technology to scan verify the contents of the
luggage
12. The cart has an ID check - Face reader, ID validity, ticket validity
13. With the luggage and ID checked, the passenger can now proceed to the
gate.
14. If there is check-in luggage, the check-in compartment of the smart cart
disconnects, and the luggage lines up at the luggage drop off place. The
passenger or the staff doesn’t need to lift or carry the luggage to put on the
conveyer belt
15. From there onwards the passenger can walk through an infra scanner which
will check the body before allowing entry to the gate. Once at the gate the
passenger can continue to keep the cart or the cart can come back outside to
serve the next passenger
16. Thus with the Smart cart, the passenger gets to the gate in minutes.
17. This solution will drastically improve the user experience and more
passengers would prefer to come in and out of this airport.
Now as I am designing I see lots of places that need considerations and need to
plan for edge cases.
8. What if the cart has security concerns? The passenger along with the cart
has to go a stop in the airport to ensure the issue is resolved
9. How many such carts can be going around the airport?
10. How can the carts get back the check-in compartment of the cart?
11. How to service passengers without any luggage?
Tradeoffs:
8. Designing the Smart Cart and bringing to market would drastically reduce the
huge lead time passengers have to set aside when their travel by air
9. With less lead time, there will be lesser passengers in the airport premises
and more open room for the Smart Cart to navigate
Pitfalls:
8. Government, law enforcement, technology, airport, etc should all come
together.
9. Technology should be advanced enough to enable stricter digital screening
and digital background checks by the smart cart.
“Smart Cart at the Airport” will be a mobile solution to reducing the time taken to
get the traveler to the gate in minutes. I am confident that this solution will delight
the travelers who will prefer to fly in and out of this airport.
44. How would you improve Uber?
Some follow-up questions to correctly understand what "improve" means here? Is

it to have: more riders, better user experience, monetization, more/new market
penetration.
Let's assume interviewer requested to choose whatever I prefer. I choose better
user experience which might trigger other areas of improvement as well.
Some more probing questions: To I need to consider USA only or any other
country/region or global? Can I consider only popular on demand taxi service for
this question? One way both drivers and riders are users for Uber, for this question
can I consider only riders user experience?
Let's assume: USA, only taxi part and riders as the preferences from interviewer.
Based on above let me define Business goal as "provide best taxi ride user
experience for the Uber app users"
Let me note down the baseline value for 2 metrics: i) retention rate and ii) %users
who opens the app and searches for ride and doesn't use the service
User Personas: Airport pickup/drop Office commuters Tourists/Visitors Patrons for
Shopping Party goers
Let me consider riders to/from airport for this exercise.
User Journey: Install the app Configure payment options Set few commonly
visited/used locations (Work, Home, etc) Search for destination Choose one of the
options Ride the vehicle Complete the ride
Pain Points:
8. Not enough options to choose the best option for ride
9. Rates considerably increased in peak hours for the same point A to B
10. The estimate of ride arrival after booking and real time is not correct
11. Driver is not sensitive to the urgency/need of the rider
12. Language barrier with some drivers
13. Vehicle cleanliness
14. Driver requesting his preferred methods of payment than chosen by rider
15. Alone female riders not comfortable to utilize service with male drivers in the
late evenings
Out of the above pain points considering the impact and reach aspects I choose to
explore solutions for 2 and 4
Solutions: for 2) Introduction of Ultra Uber membership with benefits for an annual
fee
controls considerable price fluctuations in peak hours
priority ride offers compared to non members
designated vehicle types/models for members
upgrades of vehicle class based on rider accumulated points
ability to schedule ride ahead for guaranteed vehicle type and at preferred
time Option to buy rides ahead between point A and B which works out for
both rider and driver
for 4) Ability to choose ride based on arrival time Upgrade driver navigation with
real time traffic to provide alternate options for fastest arrival Sensitize drivers to
target the arrival time Drivers to help with passenger bags based on the need.
Metrics: Measure the identified metrics retention rate and %users complete the
ride once they start the search after defined period to explore next steps to
strategize go to market in other geographic locations.
Summary: To improve the user experience of Uber app users in USA for commuters
to/from Airport I explored the solution of loyalty program and sensitize drivers for
rider needs apart from providing helpful latest navigation upgrades.
45. Design a smart shoe.

https://youtu.be/x5X-yiKyDSc
46. Design a photo app for the blind

https://youtu.be/Z85J6jWML4U
47. You work at Mumbai airport, and the CEO asks you to improve the
experience from car drop-off to boarding the plane. What's one
recommendation you would make?
Re-iterating the question: We are interested in improving the experience for users
who drop their cars in airport parking. The experience in question starts from the
moment they enter the parking area till the time they board the plane.
Core metrics that define the experience for users:
Time taken to board the flight from the time I reached at the parking zone of
the airport.
Number of manual touch points in this journey where something is expected
out of the user to move ahead the process (eg: authentication, dropping off
the bag, walking to the gate)
Here is the process I am going to follow to solve this problem. I am going to break
down complete journey into 3 parts and lay down the pain points in those parts
individually.
Leg 1: Journey till reaching the airport entry gate after reaching at the parking gate
Leg 2: Journey till reaching the security check point after reaching the airport gate
Leg 3: Journey till boarding the flight once I have reached the security check point.
We will focus on one of the leg which affects the experience metrics the most.
Then prioritise problems in that leg and pick the highest priority problem, solve it
and recommend the solution to the CEO.
Pain points in leg 1:
Users have to waste time in the queue at parking gate to take a ticket. Time
spent at gate depends upon the traffic at gate but it takes anywhere between
2-5 mins generally.
Once ticket is taken, users have to spend time in finding a parking spot. Time
spent here depends upon the availability of the slot, but it again takes 2-5
mins on average.
Once user finds a parking spot, he has to walk till the airport gate spending
anywhere between 8-10 mins.
Once you reach the airport gate, there is another queue with all other
passengers. Rough time estimate to get through the queue and security scan
is 5-10 mins easily.
Once you get inside the airport, you need to find the airline booth to drop the
bag. Rough time estimate here is 1-3 mins (including walking to the booth)
There is a queue at the booth generally which eats up another 7-10 mins
easily. I am assuming that you already have done web checkin so for users
who don't want to drop luggage this point will be redundant.
At the booth user spends another 1-3 mins in verification and bag drop.
From here users walk to the security scan for boarding. The queue and
process of scanning eats up another 7-10 mins (this could be higher
depending upon traffic at the airport)
Once the scan is done, user needs to walk to the boarding gate. In large
airports this can take anywhere from 5-15 mins.
Post reaching the boarding gate, user has to wait for the plane boarding to
start.
Waiting in the queue for a transporter, travel time by transporter and wait time
in the queue at the gate of plane are the steps post point 2. This process
again takes anywhere from 5-15 mins.
Given that the time spent in leg 3 depends a lot on the user (user may want to eat
at lounge, user may want to reach early at the boarding gate, user may want to
board the last transporter to the plane). I would not optimise the experience here
rather I would take a closer look at the leg 1 and leg 2.
In the leg 1 -> User is spending ~15 mins to reach the gate of the airport, and
another 8 mins to get inside the airport (borrowed this journey from leg 2). This is a
huge time in the journey which no one likes to spend.
My prime objective here would be to decrease the walking time (most tiring task
for user) and waiting time at the airport gate (huge wait time). To solve this pain
point, I would suggest building a tunnel/horizontal lift (depending upon how the
airport is designed) from the parking lot to the airline booth centre. User can get
verified through a digital authentication mechanism at the gate of the tunnel (this
step can actually be done at the parking entry gate also), once verified he can
directly reach the booth centre (cutting all the walking and wait time at the airport
gate).
If we were to design a MVP for the same solution, we can start with auto drive
electric carts that can take the users to the airport booth gate from a separate
entry into the airport. User will need to verify his identity to get a cart in this case.
48. Design a touchscreen table for a restaurant.

8. First I will talk about this restaurant space in general. Types of restaurants,
trends, think about how we can offer something that is differentiated to a
viable buyer.
9. Vision / mission of this product
10. User segments - pick one
11. Define user goals, user journey, needs/pain points
12. Think about solutions to their pain points (10 min)
13. Then I’d pick one or two of the solutions and define the features in more
detail, as it ties to user journey. I’ll define tradeoffs
1.Restaurant space
When I think about restaurants, I think about different types of them and different
experiences.
Fast food restaurant (mcdonalds etc). drive thru
chain restaurants - applebees, chilis, red robin, etc
sandwich spots (order up front and eat at the restaurant) like togos’ subway
mom and pop restaurants - corner chinese restaurant
casual, low key restaurants: pizza place
higher end restaurants: steak house, seafood place, etc.
High end cuisine - michelin star restaurants
When I think of touchscreen table, it has has a functional purpose in a resturant
setting. Some ideas are
order food
call your waiter
entertainment - play games, watch things.
Now, I’m thinking about where a good intersection of restaurant and touchscreen
table would be for a good market opportunity if we’re making this touchscreen
table and want to market it to.
Eliminate fast food because a lot of people don’t want to spend time in the
restaurant, usually drive thru.
Eliminate mom and pop restaurants: they usually are family owned and
operation on very small margins.
Eliminate high end: the atmosphere is sophisticated, dimly lit, quiet. They
want to provide a quiet and intimate dining experience. Not ideal for the
potential sounds and lights of a touchscreen table. Not the first target to
tackle.
Causal chain restaurants: Top opportunity. These places emphasize casual,
fun with friends and family type of dining experience. The chain restaurants
can have the capital expenditure budget to place touchscreen tables to their
restaurants.
2 Mission of product:
In summary: we are looking to design a touch screen table that we can sell to
casual chain restaurants who want to provide a fun and friendly dining experience
to their customers.
3.User Types
Let’s think about the potential users who are frequenting these casual chain
restaurants and their needs
User Types
couples dining on a date
single diners
friends get together
families eating out
families get together
people celebrating special occasions like birthday, anniversary
Now, let’s go thru each one and see where it makes sense to focus on. I’m
prioritizing the user type based on the size (how many potential users) and unmet
needs.
couples dining on a date - not big needs for entertainment there, they’re
focusing on each other’s company
single diners - can benefit these people but there are usually not so many
single diners so the target audience will be low. Plus a lot of people have their
own personal devices to keep busy and entertained.
friends get together - unmet needs, want to socialize and have fun in novel
ways. large # of diners.
families eating out - unmet needs, especially to entertain kids. Though some
existing solutions like smart phones to do that.
people celebrating special occasions like birthday, anniversary - unmet
needs, can help them to make this event special. size is small.
I’m going to pick Friends get together as a segment to focus on because our vision
for this product is to provide a fun and friendly dining experience. Friends who get
together want novel ways of having fun together, but the current existing ways of
a)their own personal devices aren’t a “togetherness” experience. So, there’s an
unmet need there to make the entertainment a more shared experience.
User Goals, Journey, Pain Points/Needs
User Type we’re focusing on is "Friends get together”
Core goals of friends who get together in a restaurant are:
want to have a shared experience
want to catch up with friends
have fun together
strengthen relationships
eat and drink
With these user core goals in mind, I will explore different use cases to identify a
user’s need towards achieving that goal. I will create a user journey map to help me
think about the various needs users may have at each stage of the process.
5.User Journey, Thoughts, Pain points
The below list shows the user journey, and associated needs
8. get to restaurant, sit down and order food
Want to get everybody’s input to the shared appetizers and find good ones
Want to order as people come in, don’t want to wait till everybody is here
want to hear my friends’ recommendations on what to eat/drink in this place
2.Catch up with friends
Want to share photos from my phone with everybody in the table.
Want to call a friend who couldn’t make it and chat with them
3.Eat and drink
want to give a review for this restaurant
want to order more food, quickly
4.Do something fun together
Want to play something fun together - interactive game like - trivia,
pictionary, pong, etc
want to watch an sports game together
5.capture memories, take photos, and vidoes, share
I want a way to see the photos we just took and share them
6.Plan for what to do next after the meal
I want to see events happening around us (like live bands, bars)
I want to see movies to go to etc
7.Pay
Need a quick way to figure out how much everybody needs to pay and
process the payment
6.Solutions
I will use possible ideas for solutions to these use cases
Transform restaurant to a game room experience - play together. A variety of
group games available to play — an eco system of apps that can be built by
3rd party developers. Can play games with other diners around the world.
Bring virtual people to the experience of dining. This idea will revolutionize
the way we see restaurant experience. Currently it is seen as a way to get
together with people in the physical world. But with this idea, you can bring
additional people virtually into that experience
Sharing of digital content (photos/vidoes) with friends, watch together.
People can connect to the table via Bluetooth and share the photos/vidoes on
the screen. (similar to screen share).
Next generation of food ordering. Digital menus, recommendations, food
picker based on people’s preferences
Transform restaurant into a viewing experience of different types of content.
Watch live stream concerts together, or sports, or even movies
I will prioritize the solutions across impact to the user’s goal and complexity of
development.
Transform restaurant to an game room experience - High value, High effort
Bring virtual people to the experience of dining. High value, Very High effort -
-will require more sophisticated hardware beyond a “touchscreen table” to
make it an immersive experience)
Sharing of digital content (photos/vidoes) with friends, watch together.
Medium value, Medium effort
Next generation of food ordering. Digital menus, recommendations, food
picker based on people’s preferences. Medium value, - For people going to
casual chains, selecting of food isn't the most major pain point. Medium effort
Transform restaurant into a viewing experience of different types of content.
Medium value, Very high effort (sports/movie viewing experience on a “table”
isn’t going to work because you have food on the table too. This requires
something beyond a table.)
Based on the prioritization above, I want to focus on the "Transform restaurant
experience to a game room experience. ” idea. This fits into meeting the goals of
the user we identified earlier, and it also brings a new way of thinking about the
restaurant experience that chain would want to offer to their customers.
7.Solution Details
Let me talk about the solution in more detail
Friends book an arcade type table when they make the reservation. This table is
ideally part of a booth type of setup where there’s some sort of sound insulation in
order not disturb the other patrons too much
the table has interactive menu where you can pick a game to play. Categories
like
card games, board games, trivial, drawing games, etc
you can invite other friends who are not at the table with you, they can join
you virtually
once the game is selected, the layout of the screen changes to suit the game.
consideration: everybody should see the game easily, a personal “game
play” area next to them
there can be tournaments organized with other groups of people n the
restaurant or around the world
We can have an app store where developers can develop games for this table
and people can download them
Tradeoffs
in the layout, we need to make sure there are enough space on the table for
food, plates, glasses, etc.
sound issue: special booth can be designed so sound isn’t too disruptive to
other patrons.
the glass should be sturdy and not easily scratched or breakable and
waterproof.
49. You are a Product Manager for Meta, you want to create a product
for climate change, what would you build?
Do you have smth special in your mind: software, hardware, mobile, desktop? Do I
have any constraints what is product here? - No
What does it mean for climate change? it can be climate in your apartment or on
the Earth? - We consider global climate change on the Earth. What can do Meta to
protect hymanity against it?
Do we have any specific goal or strategy for this product? - No, we dont.
Ok, thank you so much for clarifications.
So here is how I am going to answer this question. First, I'm going to understand
our objective and how is it alighned with Meta's mission. Second, I will choose a
user segment and brainstorm what problems we could solve for it. And third, I will
generate solutions for these problems, prioritize them, and make a
recommendation. After that, if we will still have some time, it is worth discussing
metrics and tradeoffs. Does this plan make sense for you? -Yes , please
As is commonly known that average temperatures rised on the earch and the main
cause of it are considered to be pollution and carbon dioxide. Reasons of rising
levels of carbon dioxide mainly are industry, transport, agriculture.
Mission: We provide users the tools to be able become closer together and create
communities.
So speaking about climate change I think we should focus on creating communities
that can help us decrease level of pollution and carbon dioxide.
I want to consider those who participate in carbon dioxide production and
understand how they can change the level of it:
8. travelers it can be travelers for weekends, vacation
9. job workers they need to go to work so they use transport for this
10. dairy products consumers As we cows are responsible for 18% of all
greenhouse gases, it is more than any transportation
11. heat and electricity consumers
How I want to choose the segment: I think about where Meta's impact can be the
biggest. 4) the more users we have the more electricity we use. Here I can see only
educational initiatives creating a habit to turn of the light 3) it is very tough theme,
because agriculture provides whole work with the job places.
I want to focus on transportation, because here I see big opportunities.
Lets brainstorm what problems have this people, why they need to use
transportation:
8. come to the place far away to see smth special
9. come to work and come home, pick up children
In order to decrease this use we need to solve their issues with more greed
approach.
Solutions alighned with FB mission that come to my mind:
8. shared economy of transportation
9. special bonus system for those who spend money on green's (for example to
plant a tree)
10. service "work next door" where you can find job opportunities near your
home
11. car sharing service with electric only cars
I thing that first one is most interesting when we speak about bringing world closer
together. Because this system except helping with climate issues, it facilitates
bringing world closer and create more connections between people. I definitely
want it at list to get to know with my neighboors)
How it works: it is the separate section inside FB app, with the map ingeration,
where you can put trips you need to make(starting point, ending point and time). It
is two-sided: drivers and passengers. Both can schedule their rides. When there is
a coinsidence( for the part or whole trip in some time ranges) driver receives the
request to pick up. They can use chat and facebook profiles to get to know each
other. Drivers accepts or regects. Passenger must confirm after that. After trip they
both will be asked about feedback to prevent some harmful cases in the future. If
you are a driver and made several trips, you will be ranked as the first persona in
the case when you want smb to drive you to give you more value.
So decreasing the number of cars on the roads we can help with climate
change.
Metrics: as a North star I would track # of successful trips done
Tradeoffs: This product has strong network effect, when the quantity of
participants creates the value and quality of service. How to deal with that: we
need to involve as much participants at the first stage as we can and make very
wide ranges for time and geo limits of trips. We can also increase attractivity of the
service with bages or competition moment(calculate how much carbon dioxide you
saved)
50. How would you reduce cancellation on Uber?

Clarifying questions
· What time period are we comparing the cancellations to and how much has it
dropped by?
Lets assume same quarter previous year.
· Is this a global phenomenon or a marketplace specific?
Let’s assume that this is specific to major cities in the UK and Ireland.
· Have any external factors changed in that time-specifically COVID or competitive
activity?
Assume both
Approach
I would evaluate the following factors:
COVID related:
· Health and safety: What is the safety perception of our service?-->if low, I would
add a notification that drivers and passengers are both expected to wear masks.
As part of the rider experience, I would ask the driver to stock up on masks and
hand sanitizer and add a button to measure this at the end of the ride.
· Pricing:
o Have prices surged as a result of lower supply? How can we make it safer for our
drivers to improve supply.
o Are prices significantly higher than alternatives?
· Efficiency: Has total time to destination (wait and total ride time) increased vs.
substitute products (e.g. buses, since the roads are traffic free)?
Competitive activity:
· New entrant/ existing competitor?
· Supply impact: Are they driving down the supply of our drivers by paying drivers
higher?
· Demand impact: Are they running a temporary promos to drive user acquistion
· Source of funding/ efficiency:
o Are they funded by a top VC, if the funding is significant and they are a threat in
other marketplaces we might choose to match either the higher driver payment or
lower price to customers. If not, we do not respond.
o Are they deriving efficiencies from a new product (e.g. pool): Will the product
drive sustained growth and threaten our position if we don’t compete? Can we
build the same and achieve the same/ better efficiencies? What is the MVP? How
will our stakeholders (riders, drivers, investors, government) respond?
Substitute products:
· Public transport: Can we integrate this in our app for a better CX i.e. we
recommend this option when price is significantly lower and time to destination is
nearly the same. Would help us build customer trust and trust with government.
· e-bikes/ cycles: With covid, cities are building bike lanes. It might make sense to
acquire a company that rents these. We would need to asses ROI, time to break
even, growth and how we would integrate it into our product. How would this
impact our customer acquisition and overall perception as a responsible corporate
citizen? What subsidies can we get from the government for helping drive
emissions down?
51. What is your favorite Google product and how would you improve it?
Interviewer: What is your favourite Google product, and how would you improve it?
You: Alright, before that, let me clarify; I have to give the Google product, which I
like the most, irrespective of how it is currently performing in the market, is it a
market leader or not. Also, I need to justify why it is my favourite product and
suggest some improvements. Interviewer: Perfect You: Okay, the way I would like
to go about it is, first, I will explain what qualities a good product should have and
how my favourite Google product has all those qualities. From there, we can think
of some of the scope of improvements. Interviewer: Please go-ahead You: For me
a good product is the one which should have the following qualities:
It should solve the user problem.
It should be intuitive/easy to use.
It should be aesthetically pleasing. It should have good UI/UX.
My favourite Google product is Google Maps, so to be on the same page, let me
explain what it is all about. It is a product which provides a map of the entire world
including different views like terrain, street view etc. It assists users in navigation
from points A and B, including navigation for two-wheelers, four-wheelers and
pedestrians. Also, it helps users to explore nearby restaurants, petrol pumps, ATMs
etc. Now let me explain my pain points and how Google maps have addressed
them seamlessly, making it my favourite product.
Pain points :
Earlier it was a pain finding the navigation/ searching the destination place. It
was even more challenging when I used to travel to new places.
Getting detailed information about public transport was a real challenge.
Once user knew the navigation; it was a challenge to find out how to get there
within budget.
While going to an outstation, getting track of essential places like Gas
stations, ATMs was one of the most significant pain points.
How has Google Maps addressed all these pain points?
Google Maps have a very intuitive interface in which you can search for
destination and source (it can be your location as well). It will show you the
distance between the source and destination and prompt you to navigate
from start to destination. In case you are driving, you can listen to the audible
instruction to reach the destination.
After selecting the source and destination,it gives information in detail about
the public transport like the metro number, Bus number, where to change,
how much time will it take to reach there etc.
It has one explore nearby section where you can search for the nearest ATMs,
banks, gas stations, restaurants, and much more.
Truly Google Maps is my favourite google product, but every product has some
scope of improvements. Before that, let me clarify some questions. Since Google
Map is a fantastic product, it has many features like Navigation, Maps, Nearby, so
are we looking to improve any specific functionality? Interviewer: You can decide
You: Also, improvement can be of different types like improvement in user
acquisition, user engagement or monetization. I assume that most people use
Google Maps, so acquisition shouldn’t be an issue, so I would like to focus on
engagement. Is it okay to proceed? Interviewer: Yes, please You: let’s see different
Customer segments who uses Google Maps
Commuters (bikers, four-wheelers)
Drivers (Ola, Uber)/ Delivery people
Pedestrians
Travellers/Tourists who are travelling to a new place
Explorers, who just want to search for different places
Blind people using Audible feature of Google maps
Almost all people use google maps, and all have great total addressable markets. I
would want to focus on explorers. Other people may have a specific motive in mind
while using google maps.
Pain points of explorers
8. Sometimes it gets confusing while choosing from a plethora of information
given by Google, like Best restaurants near me. It provides a lot of restaurants
and their ratings, which makes a person indecisive.
9. It is painful to get directions in big shopping malls, theme parks, stadiums etc.
Not able to see which floor has which outlet and how to get there.
10. For a person who has to go to multiple places in a day, getting the perfect
itinerary can be a real challenge so that he takes minimum time to go and
come back.
11. Friends deciding remotely which place they should meet is another painful
activity.
Prioritization I would want to prioritize pain points 1,3,2,4 in that order. Since many
shopping malls/Theme parks have infographics, that kind of solves user’s pain.
While going to a different location in one day, a person may have a specific
preference for the place, like visiting the bank early in a day and then going to
other sites. But pain point #1 of deciding the best place to eat and the ideal shop to
see is still a challenge. So I would like to solve pain point #1.
Solutions
8. We can have the “Next place you should try/go” feature, which will take
different inputs like your recent previous google search, previous user visit,
user behaviour of exploration or exploitation of the choices, reviews etc.
Depending on all this, we can have a smart, personalized AI feature that will
narrow down the suggestion to the top 3 places which a person should go.
For the improvement of the AI engine, we can ask the User some questions
after the visit.
9. Another solution can be giving Users personalized recommendations like
geofencing. For example, if a person searched for the best burger outlet a
week ago, and he has just passed a good burger outlet (.i.e. “Truffles”), he
should get a notification like “Would you love to try Truffle’s bestseller all
American cheeseburger at 40% discount exclusively for you”. This can act as
another source of revenue for Google partnering with brands and giving
personalized recommendations to Users depending on its geolocation.
10. Alternately there can be a “Gamification” solution that may increase customer
engagement. The delayed gratification of the reward of the game will improve
the user stickiness. For example, giving a review after visiting someplace will
earn the User a spin of the gaming wheel, giving rewards like 30% off on
shoes at a Nike outlet near him.
11. People love their childhood superheroes; Google can leverage this customer
behaviour by using augmented reality. When the User is navigating to one
place, there can be a superhero running and assisting/escorting the person
instead of the navigation arrow.
The above solutions show that 1 and 2 have a significant impact on engagement
than 3 and 4, but the gamification feature can increase engagement without much
effort. There can be a potential hindrance in solution two, like partnering with
brands which may take time. So we can go ahead and have feature one on the
product roadmap. We can do beta testing of the features in different areas of the
world and track the following metrics for the success of the features
Success Metrics
% increase in the rating of the place that Google has suggested to the User.
% increase in the review posted by the User of a particular location.
% increase in the customer screen time in Google Maps.
# of spins of the gamification wheel.
52. Design a communication app for children.
https://youtu.be/NOZEko9cDl4
53. Design an ATM for kids

Clarifying question - Who are we? Any constraints - time/money? What region are
we going to focus on? Do we have a goal in mind? I'm assuming a product like this
does not exist in today's world. How do you define kids - any specific age range?
User Segments -
8. Beginner - don't know what an ATM is/don't understand money that well
9. Intermediate - have a basic understanding of ATMs
10. Advanced - have a really good understanding - maybe are on the older side
Segment chosen is the Intermediate one since it would have the biggest impact.
User Journey and goal behind using an ATM - Enter card, pin, and get cash
Pain Points -
8. Don't remember the pin if parents asked the kid to go get cash from the ATM
9. ATM is too high for the kid to reach
10. Kid presses the wrong button on the screen which results in wrong amount
withdrawn and now they don't know what to do. Too much money is
withdrawn.
11. Kids don't feel safe in the ATM because they are slow and want to take their
time and there are people outside that might stress them out
Pain point chosen would be the first one because it is most likely to happen and
probably is the biggest pain point for kids
Solutions
8. Using finger print/facial recognition to help the kid who has forgotten the pin
to authenticate
9. Helping the kid authenticate by asking certain question using voice
recognition only the parent would know.
10. Having a limit if the ATM detects the kid is the one who is withdrawing in
order to make sure not too much money is withdrawn. (This doesn't directly
help the pain point chosen but helps pain point number 3)
I would prioritize the second solution because voice recognition seems like the
easier software for the bank to deal with since it might not have a lot of complex
software capability.
On further thought, I'd like to think about how the kid would interact with the ATM
and initiate this pin question asking process.
54. Design a high-tech gym.

https://youtu.be/DeyuC2KvJzk
55. How would you use VR to improve education?

https://youtu.be/j2e87oLd-9I
56. Improve the experience of moving to a new city.

https://youtu.be/aJxiSYiNwXk
57. How would you improve Facebook Search?

Questions:
Is "Facebook Search" referring to the overall search bar at the top where users can
search across multiple facebook products (people, events, groups, marketplace,
etc.)
Interview (I): Assume it is for the overall search experience
What's the current goal for Facebook as a company? How does Facebook search
fit into the current company goal?
I: Your call
What's the goal for this improvement for Facebook Search? Are we aiming to drive
engagement overall? engagement within a particular product? increase discovery-
> adoption of new product (like adding a new group)?
I: Your call
What platform are we focusing on?
I: Your call
Assumptions:
"Facebook Search" feature that we are improving is for the overall search
experience on FB
This exercise will focus on...
the mobile platform since mobile usage/adoption is on the rise and most facebook
users will be accessingFB on their mobile platform (vs. desktop)
Facebook Goal: Drive meaningful connections & engagements within your
community
FB Search Goal: Help users find the meaningful engagements that they desired in
the FB community
Approach:
Define user segment that we want to hone in on
Understand use cases and pain points for the specific user segment
Identify potential ideas to solve the identified pain points
Prioritize and select an idea for my product vision
List and prioritize features
Trade-off / risks
User Segments by activity frequency
Daily FB users
Weekly FB users
Monthly FB users
In-frequent users (5-10 times a year)
Potential Churner (less than 5 a year)
Normally, I would want to look at FB data to see what are the sizing for each bucket
and their engagements on the platform. Given that we don't have this data today
and our goal is to improve search so we can help increase engagements in the FB
platform, I would not pick daily and weekly users since they are probably already
engaging with the platform quite frequently (i.e # of posting/comments/likes per
month is high for these two groups). I would pick Monthly FB users since...
their engagement is probably low (compare to daily/weekly segment), which
creates a large opportunity for us improve their engagement
their monthly activity means that we have more opportunity to engage and
influence their activity on facebook, vs. in-frequent/potential churners
search use case and pain points
hard time finding only latest posts/activities from my friends to get latest updates
difficult to find a person that I am looking for to add
want to find a group to join, but don't know what to search for / too many results
want to find an event worth going to but dont know which events are my friends
going to
difficult finding the item that I want to buy on marketplace
hard to find a photo or video that my friends are in
I'd like to focus on improving the experience of "finding an event worth going to
but dont know which events are my friends going to". I want to focus on this for the
following reasons:
by helping the user find an event that they want to go with their friends, it aligns
well with FB and our feature goal by helping users to find meaningful engagement
on FB
this type of search activities are something that can happen more frequently than
the other search use cases (e.g. it is more likely that I want to find things/events to
go to with my friends every week vs. trying to find a group to join or finding a friend
to add). If I can make this experience delightful and easy, it can turn into a habit
where users can come back weekly to find events to go to with their friends
lastly, events change all the time, so there is a bit of a fomo effect that can drive
users to come back to use this new search feature; otherwise, they will miss out
Product Visions:
Find the best events near you that you and your friends will love to go to
Feature Ideas:
Event suggestion based on your and your friend's activity on facebook
Event suggestion based on what your friends and friends of friends (2nd degree)
are going to
Hot / popular Events near you (based on fb rsvp)
The feature I would build to improve the search experience for events would be #1.
By basing the recommendation based on your activity and friend's activity, we can
open up the # of events that can be recommended (vs. #2 may be limited if your
friends aren't going to an event). Additionally, #1 will enable our users to be seen
as more of a "recommender" as they can now suggest events to their friends
knowing that the event should be relevant to your friends. If it goes well, this can
create a positive psychological behavior that can sustain this habit (e.g. I want to
keep being the "recommender").
From a UX standpoint, I imagine the user can click on the top search bar and it will
take them to a search experience where the top will show a list of events in a
horizontal manner. For each recommended event, there should be an obvious CTA
to share this event with your friends, as well as some reasons why this event was
recommended (e.g. related to your groups, related to an event that your friends
just went to, your friends are already going, etc.)
Risk / Trade-off
There can be potential user privacy concern as we will need to read your activities
and your friend's activities (like comments, groups, postings, etc.)
Once a user and their friends click RSVP, we don't know if the event is actually as
good and relevant as expected. so we will need to figure a way to gauge this so we
can understand whether our recommendation is actually working
By taking up a more prominent area in the search UX, this can also have a negative
impact on other search activities, thus decreasing engagement of other FB
products.
58. Design a website that makes GIFs.
https://youtu.be/SyWgQ60ralQ
59. How would you improve WhatsApp?

https://youtu.be/e0Nj_eYDj2s
60. How would you improve YouTube?
Clarifying/Assumptions:
Assuming improvement refers to lift in engagement in this case.
Youtube refers to the WWW and mobile platforms.
Key User Segments:
8. Creators
1. Influencers/Celebrities
2. Video bloggers
3. Regular users
11. Viewers
1. Power watchers
2. Casual watchers
3. Churned watchers
Selecting the Influencer segment from the above list since it is a smaller volume of
users and will have a big impact on viewers. Also, it is easier to understand the
problems of this segment since they are fewer in volume.
Celebrity/Influence Persona - These can be internet celebrities like a famous YT
star, famous movie star, music artist, etc. They are often very tech-savvy or
managed by someone tech-savvy, have huge followings, often from major
metropolitan cities, in the age range 18-60 typically.
Key problems faced by celebrities:
8. Connecting with fans - Hard for them to connect and form bonds with their
fans
9. Abuse and Troll
Choosing to focus on the connection part with fans since most companies are
already investing in the abuse and troll space using NLP. I also believe improving
connecting with fans will have a greater impact on engagement goal.
Potential Solutions:
8. QnA - Tool: Allow fans to ask questions to live streamers before the session
starts or follow up questions to posted videos. Like an NLP based tools that
will bucket question into themes
9. Exclusive Fan Content: Allow Celebrities to create exclusive fan clubs. Fans
will get personalized memorabilia and gifts, early previews etc to music,
shows, special screenings etc.
10. VR based content - Allow celebrities to publish content in the VR world and
provide a much more immersive experience to the fans.
Prioritization of solution: Based on eng cost and impact on UX (engagement,
reach). VR will have a small reach since few people have access to VR devices so it
will have a low impact on engagement. QnA tool can have some negative impact in
terms of lack thrill of getting the question picked up randomly and can lead to
some users feeling neglected. Exclusive fan content will, on the other hand, give a
stronger feeling of exclusivity to fans and build a stronger bond and also prompt
other users to join this club.
UX Journey
8. Fans that are regular subscribers, power watchers, quality comment writers,
and low spam scores can be extended this invitation to join Youtube Celeb
Fan Club.
9. Once in the fan club, they will have access to a celebrity page with messages,
memorabilia, chat rooms, ticket buying options. The ability to request
answers for their questions, have exclusive chats with the celebrity, get
selected for randomly chosen for memorabilia from celebrities that are signed
by the celebrity.
10. Fans can pay a small membership fee to get free signed poster, discounted
tickets etc
Success Metric:
8. For Celebs/Influencers, we can measure the success by number of videos
posted and interaction with fans in the fan club (reply, messages)
9. For fans - we can measure the lift in their activity and look at DAU, WAU for
users that are part of the fan club. We can also look at the number of people
interested in joining the fan club.
61. How would you improve the music listening experience on YouTube?
Statement: Improve the music experience at youtube Is the goal to improve the
experience for any particular kind of user/music genre? Ans: No, nothing in
particular Goal: I’m going to assume the goal is to improve the experience of
listening to music generally Google’s mission is to organise the world’s information.
Youtube is a platform that lets people discover videos, interesting content as
tailored to their interests, thus serving Google’s mission Music on Youtube also
contributes to the mission of the company Customer Segments:
8. Students, College people
9. Music event organisers
10. Indie Artists,
11. record labels
Brainstormed ideas
8. Live concert feature - for indie artists, organisers, Students, college folks
9. When people travel they want to listen to the most popular music of the area,
recommend popular music of that location
10. Build tools for teaching music via youtube
Going to expand on the live concert idea as during the pandemic people miss
going to music concerts, especially music lovers and younger people. Extend
Youtube as a live streaming platform to organise live music concerts
Pain points and features Event Organizers - features to create and promote live
music events, sell tickets. Artists can bid for upcoming events Attendees -
Discover events based on interests, allow them to purchase tickets and refer
friends Features on the live event tab. Features to simulate a communal
viewing/listening experience. A side panel where user reactions and comments are
visible, as well as a visual which reflects the level of enthusiasm, enjoyment of the
audience. Paid members get additional perks like requesting songs and post
concert interactions with artists.
Success Metrics: Number of events created per week # of paid ticket attendees
Engagement during concert - number of reactions # of people attending their 2nd
concert - to measure retention
62. Design a parenting product.

https://youtu.be/KpB34DEFchw
63. Design a smart phone for blind people

Clarifying questions : Define Smart? -- Tech friendly / Easy to use / etc Define Blind
People -- They can hear, etc They read using Brail, etc.
Goal: Engagement : NPS score or review rating
User Segment: US Market, Working adults! ( I would like to pick adults as kids don't
use phones as much ) Possible Users : Doctors, Engineerings, Cashiers, Banks,
Accountants ( I want to pick people who are working desk jobs to validate my
hypothesis or MVP as they will be using phones more often than doctors and any
other professionals
Journey: wake up, check phone, check time, breakfast, go to work, commute,
news. locating items, grocery shopping. don't really have a sense of surroundings,
they cannot read everything as it is in English
Characteristics: Read brail, they can hear and read brail.
Pick one pain point: + lack this sense of surroundings, they cannot read everything
based in English,
Solutions :
ScanAround: which will scan things around and tell them what is where,
object, human or animal. +convertTo Brail: this will basically convert any news
they want to read to Brail. basically
Summary : Scan Around functionality launch as MVP and then iterate through that.
64. Design a refrigerator for blind people.

First, I would make the following assumptions to solve this question without instant
feedback.
Assumptions:
The main use cases for the refrigerator will be to maintain food in the right
temperature and will not include making ice cubs or pouring water
The only disability of the user is blindness
Then, I would identify the main flows used when maintaining food refrigerated,
which are:
8. Putting food into the fridge
9. Taking out food out of the fridge
Within these flow these are some pain points:
Pain points
8. Putting food into the fridge:
1. Where do I put it? In the fridge or in the cooler?
2. How do I know if there is enough space?
3. How do I organize food / beverages inside the fridge?
4. How do I know food is not longer fit for consumption?
12. Taking out food out of the fridge:
1. How do I know where is the food I want to take out?
For each flow, I would propose some solutions:
Possible solutions:
1. Voice command: this can help us tell the fridge which food it and then it
can decide how it can stored (ideal temperature, location in fridge)
2. Auto-arrange & auto -temperature: when users put food in fridge it will
automatically set right temperature and arrange food in the fridge (it will
need to identify type of food)
3. Voice notifications: a voice alert when food is close to expire, when there
is not enough space in the fridge
1. Voice command: this can help us tell the fridge which food user want to
take out of the fridge
All solutions are great but if needed to select one, I would select one that satisfies
2 flows as voice command and we can over more details about its functionalities,
metrics and tradeoffs
Voice command solution
1. User tells fridge which food it is
2. Fridge tells user where to put food (tell directions). Ideally, it will re-
arrange but maybe this scope is too broad
3. User puts food in fridge
4. It will set right temperature
5. Fridge will give notification to user when food is damaged and occupancy
of fridge is full
1. User will tell fridge which food it wants to take out
2. Fridge will tell user to where the food is located
Metrics:
Usage of voice command
Occupancy of refrigerator
Rotation of food (sign that user actually used the fridge)
Tradeoffs
Accuracy of voice command (maybe voice commands wont be understood at
first try)
68. Design a fitness app for Facebook.
A. Clarifying questions-
External factors- Timelines, Geography, Competition
Internal factors- Meta's goals for entering into fitness space, full-fledged app
or part of any existing Meta app
Goals- Will go after engagement, since it is a new app.
B. Identifying users-
Heavily/ Professionally into fitness
Casual fitness enthusiasts
Not interested in fitness
C. Prioritizing user segments- I will prioritize #2. Segment #1 does not really need
external motivation. Segment #3 will be a costly segment to go after, as it involves
habit creation, which is not entirely in our control.
D. Report pain points- I will look into the common problems a user in segment #2
has that affects each of these aspects
Awareness- Lack of information on workout styles, nutrition, diet patterns,
self-habits
Interest- Boredom from repetitive workouts, Feeling of going nowhere
Desire- No track of whether goals are achieved, No track of comparison with
peers or indications of social standing
Action- Lack of ideas on locations of gyms/ fitness centers, Lack of ideas on
how to reach there
E. Prioritizing pain points and listing solutions- Will go after #3 first as increase of
intrinsic desire, will ensure higher engagement in future. These are features
proposed to solve this bucket of pain points-
Streak- Measure how regularly a user checks-in and logs workouts in app.
Send timely reminders on potential streak loss in case they miss out a day.
Goal tracking- Allow users to define goals in terms of calories/ weight and
track their progress over time.
Peer comparison- Leaderboard-like features among peers, social bragging
rights by enabling quick share to WhatsApp/ Instagram/ Facebook. Allow
users to share these stats in Insta/ Facebook bios.
F. Prioritizing features- Will use (impact, effort size, social virality) as parameters to
evaluate the strength of each solution
Streak (H, L, L)
Goal tracking (M, M, M)
Peer comparison (H, H, H)
G. Metrices Engagement can be tracked by- Daily check-ins, Goal completion
rates, frequency of sharing of achievements on social media Guardrails- Low
stickiness (DAU/ MAU). If users are not sticking, we have not solved the desire pain
point enough
69. How would you improve Slack?

I'm going to structure my answer like this so it is easy for both of us to follow up
and grasp them easily. Let's first clear out some of the grey areas and make them
black and white. Also, decide what are in-scope and out of scope. Second, let's
understand what is our goal for improvement - is it the customer experience or any
specific feature in mind? for a group of users? Third, I will brainstorm what are the
pain points for user personas and solutions to improve them. Fourth, I will prioritize
the feature solutions and check the tradeoff and do final recommendations along
with the metrics to define success.
8. My understanding of Slack - this is an IM communication tool. and I have
used the desktop version and not used the mobile version much. As mostly
used at work, most of the users have experience in desktop.
9. What do we want to improve? - is there any issue in mind or just the customer
experience or any particular feature? customer acquisition or retention? =>
let's do customer experience
When I look at the user personas using slack,
8. working professionals
9. students
Let's focus on working professionals as they make most % of our customer base.
When I look at the issues/pain points for working professionals, I could think of the
following:
8. more distractions and unable to have a focussed time during work and
meetings
9. lots of channels, threads, and workspaces
10. If unattended for some time, there are loads of notifications in the channel
and threads
11. cannot message someone if they are not in slack. this requires to use of
alternative communication tools.
Of the 4 pain points, I would like to take pain points 1 and 3 together- more
distractions and unable to have a focussed time. And hence when we choose to
snooze the notifications we are overwhelmed with loads of notifications from the
threads and channels.
Quickly brainstorming the solutions.
8. Snoozing notifications should be personalized. Even though there are
features to set the snooze period, our work wont be exactly like the snooze
period every day. So an AI bot that can integrate with our calendar should
snooze the notifications. Additionally, it should also snooze them during
voice/video calls or meetings in the slack. Notifications during the meeting
will be a distraction.
9. Give priority to a particular channel or user or enable the sender to mark a
particular message as high/low priority.
10. A virtual Assistant bot could interact with the sender and collect all the
messages. In this way, the sender is not annoyed and gets acknowledged.
Of the above 3 solutions, I think I would like to spin solutions 1 and 2 together.
Because there could be a really urgent/important message during a meeting that
needs the person's attention. So a high-priority message will pop up even though a
person is in a meeting.
This solution will be a better customer delight. From Engineering feasibility, it
should be a moderate difficulty.
Metrics that I would define for success.
8. the number of users installing this APP/bot to integrate with their calendar.
9. Number of hours the notification snooze happens in a day
10. Number of high priority messages are shown during the notification snooze
time
11. Number of messages the user interacts with these high priority messages
70. Design a product for Parking. It is not a FB product
Product for Parking: I am assuming Parking refers to here a place where users can
park their vehicles.
Assumptions:-
I am assuming it to be mobile app and for geographical location: India. The reason I
am choosing India is because of personal familiarity with the location as well as
with places opening up post covid, users will prefer taking their own cars instead of
cabs or sharing vehicles or buses due to safety concerns. This will further worsen
the traffic problem as well as the parking problem. I am also assuming there are no
restrictions in terms of investment- time and money
I like to go with user acquisition/user engagement as the goal as we are launching a
new app in the market.
The outline of the answer would be identifying the key personas and their pain
points
Post that I can go deeper by picking one of the segments and identifying the
solution to address the concern, finding the MVP of the solution and evaluating
metrics.
Lastly, I would like to explore the risks around the solution discussed, discuss
competitors, etc
I hope that sounds good. Let me proceed with stakeholders: Parking is usually
needed in where lot of cars needed to be parked simultaneously. Such places are:
Commercial space like Malls , entertainment parks, movie theatres etc
Government Buildings where people are coming to get administrative tasks done
Business Space like offices - public/private etc
High Executives like Prime Minister, CEOs place where lot of visitors are coming to
meet/greet/ etc
For the purpose of our conversation, I would like to choose Business Space as
offices have begun to open and people would prefer to take their own vehicles
instead of shared cars or cabs or city transports as they have to commute often
and would want to avoid the risk of contracting virus.
User and the pain points using office parking:
Full time employees which come to office regularly but they don't have any fixed
time to come and go, they usually come and leave as per the need and the
convenience.
Shift employees - usually who have fixed time to come and go
Regular Visitors/Supporting Users: Technicians/Shopkeepers etc who are coming
regularly to fix some wiring or plumbing or giving some deliverables etc
Occasional Visitors: Users who are coming to meet their friends or families or the
partners or the customers who are coming to visit the office
For today's conversation, I would like to move ahead with Occasional Visitors and
their pain points:
Unfamiliarity with the place: Usually business space often comprises of multiple
buildings and offices in a single community area. Hence, occasional visitors- say a
partner has no clue where is the building or the location they have to visit, which
gate to use to enter. where is the parking in the community
Availability of the parking: Even if you find a parking, you don't know if there is
availability in that parking space, if there is availability in the parking space. How
close can they get available space to the location they have to visit as they are
coming for a limited time and would want it to be nearby
Difficulty in parking: Sometimes the parking area are very poorly planned and it
gets difficult for the driver to park their car or the parking space is at very
inaccessible place or the driver could be a novice
Type of Vehicles: 2-wheeler or 4 wheeler have usually different designated
parking. In fact hatchback and sedan may not fit into the same parking place and it
gets difficult to park a sedan/7-seater car in a corner place.
Solutions to address the above problems:
Solution 1: Valet parking is always an easy option but you can't scale it and hence
not a very feasible solution
Solution 2:We can design an app that a user can leverage to check the map of the
community; available parking, reserve the spot and can park when he arrives. The
app can give suggestions about which cars can fit in which place. Given a car
model and the building details, time of the visit, the app can suggest the best
feasible parking. This will also help user to decide to take a cab if required in case
there is no parking. We can even use Machine learning to suggest user if there are
chances of parking available on certain days and times ahead few days to plan.
User can even request assistance if available.
Solution 3: We can even design lifts for cars. and designated tracks. For example:
A user can always leave the car in front of the designated track or the building. The
track will automatically take the car to fixed parking space and put in lift. Lift will
take the car and put in the perfect spot. Even vertically if required to save the
space. User can enter the details of the car while leaving the building and by the
time he is out at the main gate, car will be fetched and will be waiting in front of the
track.
I would like to go with the second solution for this parking app and as a metric will
measure the number of successful transactions or the parking done via the app. I
also track how many users dropped in middle of the funnel like couldn't find the
parking or parking where there but where not satisfied with the suggested location.
Risks : What if the user blocked the parking but someone else parked on the spot
before the user arrived. To mitigate the rick. we can add sensors to inform the user
if the blocked parking is lost to avoid inconvenience.
Competitors : Not aware of any competitors at this moment
71. How would you prevent cyberbullying on Reddit?
Clarification: Reddit, homepage of the internet, a place that aggregates news, and
topics of interest, on some type of a timeline. users can subscribe to sub reddits.
Goal is to address bullying. Define bullying as any form of abuse either verbal or via
images, or harassment of any kind. It could be personal, directed towards a
gender, a political view or ideology, religion and any kind of identity being abused
in a manner so as to intentionally cause hurt and abuse.
Goal: To reduce bullying, is there a specific kind of bullying we want to reduce or
just want to explore? Explore
Users:
Those who are causing and creating abusive content or comments, Those who are
subject to direct or indirect abuse
8. Virulent abuse
9. Mild abuse/controversial discussions
vs.
8. Highly vulnerable: Teens , those who are generally vulnerable, elders,
communities that are downtrodden or have history of abuse and more
sensitive
9. Somewhat vulnerable : Core group
Goal - start with addressing the highly vulnerable ones , who face violent forms of
abuse And also any kind of high intensity form of bullying or abuse
Use cases:
Bully
8. Starts an argument
9. Victim or victimized group responds to argument
10. Bully responds with abuse of bullying
11. Victim feels bullied and is frustrated and argues
Options here:
8. Detect abusive post as someone types
1. Auto detect
2. Detect based on someone reporting abuse along with reason
10. Flag abusive post
1. Based on auto detect options
1. Either delete or not even allow to post
2. Post but flag as a potential post that needs review and has been
hidden
3. Show but with warnings
4. Based on reporting abuse
1. Algorithm to take same actions as above based on factors such as
1. Manual review
2. Auto flagging based on rules
12. Deal with abusers or bullies 3. Warn and block from posting 4. Remove from
platform, various levels
13. Deal with the victims
2. Apologise
3. Communicate about actions taken
Prioritization Goal to reduce the most violent forms, hence stat with auto detect
eg: Sexually explicit abuse or curse words hurled at a younger audience Nudity
sexual violence etc, being shared on the platform Sensitive words or stop words
being used (such as targeted curse words against a particular community) Can
even start learning
Design: Dont even allow to post, essentially black of entire text post a warning to
poster not visible to everyone ML models
Measure of success:
# of reports of abuse or complaints should reduce progressively
Pitfalls: Hard to stop abuse using images, ML cant learn a lot of forms of abuse.
Maybe good to start with the notify abuse feature even without manual review, in
select markets in order for ML to learn.
72. How would you improve Facebook Events?

I'm going to assume I'm the PM for Events.
Clarifying Questions:
Is there any reason why we're improving Events, perhaps any bugs or feature
requests? I'll assume improvement is open-ended
Are we scoped to Facebook mobile or web? I'll assume no
I'd like to break this problem down into three areas: goals, users, and solutions.
Let's talk about goals first.
Higher-level goal for Facebook & Events
The higher-level goal for Facebook is to bring people closer together and empower
them to build community. Events fits into this goal by connecting people over
shared interests or occasions and making it easier to build community in the real
world.
Product/business goal for Events
I also want to talk about the product and business goals for Events that support its
job to be done. Events as a product is successful in the platform's overall mission if
it drives engagement. This can be done by creating events, sharing them with
friends, or even engaging in lower-level activities like posting on the Events page,
commenting and liking on posts, etc.
The business goal is the same. We want higher engagement, because that helps us
understand users better and improve ad targeting. In both cases, we should focus
on improving Events to drive up engagement.
Successful engagement with Events should result in any events created through it
being successful. I think an event is successful when people actually attend it. This
can't just be a handful of people though, it should be expressed as a ratio of the
people invited to the event. So, the north star metric I'll use to see if my
improvement is successful is the % of invitees who RSVP yes. If this number is
higher post-improvement, I'd say we're making events more successful and thus
driving up engagement.
Users
I'd like to segment by use cases instead of user demographics, because I know all
sorts of people who use Events. I can think of three main use cases for Events:
Special occasions: birthdays, anniversaries, etc. Friends invite each other
Organization events: company events, university events, club events.
Affiliation-based and usually organized by some events committee or
community person in org
Open events: Large community events open to anyone with shared interest.
E.g. Cherry Blossom Festival, open protests, Pride parade
I want to prioritize which use case we build a solution for. I'll consider engagement
levels and frequency of events as my criteria. Special occasions have higher
engagement because they are personal and you know the organizer well. Between
org and open events, I think open events happen on larger scales but are much
less frequent. Org events, on the other hand, occur everywhere in all sorts of
community bubbles. Let's focus on building a solution for organization events.
Pain Points
I'll consider pain points from the perspective of the organizer/committee chair for
these events. I have three in mind:
Inviting the right people (assuming upper cap on total attendees)
Convincing invitees to attend
Making sure attendees attend future events too (retention // post-event
funnel)
Again, I'd like to prioritize which pain point we should solve for. I'll consider how big
of a problem each pain point is and how much it can boost our north-star if solved.
I think creating post-event funnels are difficult but there are tools to handle that to
make sure we retain current attendees for future events. Between inviting the right
people and convincing invitees to attend, I think the latter is a bigger problem
because people spend more time on it, and solving it can also boost our north-star
metric more. Many orgs are bottlenecked by demand instead of supply, i.e. they
have more open seats than demand for those seats, so I think convincing invitees
to attend solves for that demand imbalance.
Vision: My vision for this improvement is an Events 2.0 that makes sure your
organization event is fully booked out.
Solutions
I came up with two solutions. I can brainstorm more if needed.
Sales automation tool: Within Events, configure funnel and message
templates to reach out to invitees. The tool customizes template based on
public information we have from user's Facebook account. Outreach is done
via Messenger or email.
On-platform nudges: Add nudges, cards, and popups on Facebook that
reminds user of the event they were invited to. Create a feeling of missing out
by notifying user whenever a set of their friends RSVP yes. Can be shown on
Feed, as web or mobile notifications, on a friend's profile ("This person is
attending {{some}} event. Join them now {{insert CTA}}")
I think it's more feasible to build a sales automation tool because on-platform
nudges might detract experience on regular Facebook session and have a
prerequisite of user engaging with Facebook enough to see nudges everywhere.
What if the reason an invitee hasn't been convinced is because they don't go on
Facebook that much and thus haven't been "sold" enough? Our automation tool
solves that problem.
More implementation details: Entry point is an opt-in feature after creating an event
hosted by an organization. If opted-in, organizer can build their own outreach
funnel with invitees. Messages can be customized. We can suggest different
templates ranging from genuine to sales-y. Organizer can also select medium of
outreach. Once finalized, funnel can be scheduled for times the invitee is active on
Messenger, or some generic time for email.
Trade-offs and Metrics
Trade-offs: Privacy concerns (how does the organizer know all this (public)
info about me?), why not use stronger sales tools (we need to add more
Facebook integrations to increase value add, like integrating with Facebook
Ads)
Metrics: For lagging, do an A/B test with users of our sales tool vs non-users
to see if RSVP rates are higher with users. For leading metrics, check if tool is
being used or not. Check funnel metrics all the way from clicking "Yes" on
opt-in to scheduling the outreach. Feature is successful if funnel metrics are
healthy and A/B test shows that the tool bumps up RSVP rates.
73. How would you increase engagement for Spotify
Let's start with clarifying question -> What do we want to achieve with increased
engagement?
Let's say Spotify has personalization that prefers more engaged songs/podcast to
be available to new users (who have not heard that song). Along the same lines as
Facebook/Linkedin/Instagram prefers posts. The more the song/podcast is
engaged among users, for more people it will be visible to listen.
What users we are targeting? There are 2 broad categories of users such as
creators and listeners. We are targeting listeners.
What do you mean by Engagement -> Focusing on business side, engagement will
be likes, shares, downloads, saved music liked by the users or added to their
playlist, view album, artists. (There are many more features through which we can
know engagement such as skip forward 15 seconds or skip back 15 seconds, sleep
timer etc.,) I don't really think it matters much when compared to business goals.
Because these features are user delight features.
Let's start of mission with Spotify - Spotify's mission is to unlock the potential of
human creativity—by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their
art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it.
Pain-points are ->
10. Users are not able to find new (quality) songs (which we can determine based
on engagement for any particular song)
11. Users don't understand what logo means on song screen.
12. Sometimes user forget the name of the song or artist. Since many artists can
have songs with same name. So it would be difficult to find songs.
13. I need to share song with my friend/colleague.
Users: I categories users into three categories such as occasional users, casual
users and power users.
10. Occasional users: Who don't really use Spotify much about once or twice a
week (Like me 😅 )
11. Causal users: Who listens to about 3 to 5 times a week.
12. Power users: Who listens to Spotify everyday.
Pain-point of all 3 types of users:
Occasional users: Who don't really use Spotify much about once or twice a week
(Like me 😅 ) Pain points--> Users don't understand what logo means on song
screen or sometimes view album/artist on the 3 dots on the right side (So it is
difficult for users to find). If they like the song they have to search through the
search of Spotify again and they click on listens. (It is a fuss)
Causal users: Who listens to about 3 to 5 times a week. Pain points--> These
people do like songs but** **sometimes forgets the name of song and search for it
through lyrics (I tried did that but usually get bad results 🥲 )
Power users: Who listens to Spotify everyday. Pain points--> They find difficult to
look for new but quality songs. So they have to listens to old songs (which they
have already listens to.)
Solutions: To increase engagement.
10. Improve the UX Design for engagement.
11. Provide 15 minutes a day of free music if they engage with the song.
12. Automatically like a song (If a user listens to the song till the end).
Let's discuss all the options and prioritize:
10. Improve UX Design for engagement:
2. We can start with showing nudge once the songs about to end and
vibrate the phone. A small and seamless dialog box opens up and asks
them if they like the song they can like it or share it. (There should be a
learn more options where users can learn more about it why we are
mentioning it). -> This would help other people to discover new and
quality songs not only that they can also view those songs in the "Liked
song" bucket so that they do not need to search again and again.
3. There should be a save song option - This would help users to save the
song for listening later. (Please not that there is a difference in save song
and liked song) -> Liked song would help in discoverability but save song
is only for specific user who is saving the song.
4. There should be download option at the song screen so that user can
download that song if they wish from song screen for offline listening.
5. For new users (who are new to Spotify), we can show text
like/share/download with logos (which is already present) on the screen
song. Once they spend good amount time with app, it will automatically
be disabled and can be enable from the setting screen from the user
side.
14. Provide 15 minutes a day of free music if they engage with the song: If as a
user you or me engage with a song, we would get 15 minutes of Spotify a day
without advertisement. This way people would have something to look for
when they engage with the product. Tradeoff --> There will be some impact
on the revenue if we enable this feature
15. Automatically like a song (If a user listens to the song till the end): We always
listen to full song if we like the song, right? We can use it for our advantage by
automatically enabling like if a user listened to full song. Tradeoff -->
Sometimes we forget to turn off our music and music keeps on playing in our
headphones.** **This would result in false positive likes where song which is
not liked by the user genuinely would still shown as liked.
I will prioritize the first out of all 3 and test it out. First launching it for 5% or 10% of
total users of Spotify and compare the results with previous situation to see if there
is some augmentation in the metrics. If we can deduce based on experimentation
that this had some positive impact. I will launch it for all of the users.
Summary:
10. First, we need to increase the engagement metrics of Spotify and we are
focusing on business aspect of the consumer metrics.
11. Second, we are focusing on listening segment of our users.
12. Third, we have different type of pain point of the users.
13. Fourth, we will focus on all 3 type of segments of listening users.
14. Fifth, we will improve the UX of the song screen
15. Sixth, we will test it and compare it with previous data.
74. Design a product to encourage voting.
https://youtu.be/jQhdz4j29fU
75. Design a product to tackle Facebook's fake news problem.

Redefining the question as: How will you solve the problem of misinformation on
FB?
Are we talking about building a product? (Up to you)
What exactly is misinformation? (Fake news, inaccurate facts being shared on
social media)
Goal: Reduce the amount of misinformation spread on the platform and improve
user trust.
Key users associated with misinformation:
10. News Accounts (eg CNN) - They may get involved in some controversy about
a fake photoshopped article being shared by rogue actors.
11. Influencers - Due to deep fakes a lot of celebrities might end up getting
looped into fake news or fake videos.
12. Regular FB users - These are users who start reporting fake articles by
sharing it and forwarding it to their friends and families without verifying the
facts. Some users may also be creating fake accounts and sharing fake
information.
For the purpose of this exercise, I want to focus on regular users since these are
the ones who are creating fake information and spreading rumors.
Some of the problems associated with accounts are:
10. Lack of Trust
2. Don’t know who started the article and what is the source of information
11. Lack of ability to effectively report inaccurate information
2. Hard to report fake information. The design is cryptic (3 dots)
11. Lack of information -
2. People don’t know how to get the most trustworthy information when
they see fake information.
These 3 problems are very deeply interrelated and can’t be solved alone. We need
a holistic solution to solve all of them.
Potential solution:
10. FB Fact Checker
2. A team of community moderators that detects trending fake topics using
trending algorithms and create a report of trending fake topics. A key set
of expert fact-checkers will verify the key trends and publish a weekly
report explaining Fake vs Truth to FB users. This report will be provided in
the FB newsfeed as a card in a highlighted manner.
11. Content recommendation
2. Using FB community managers to detect fake trending topics and for
those topics recommend similar news articles from verified accounts next
to them in the feed. For example, do topic detection and recommend
articles with the same topics from verified sources before or after the
fake news card element.
11. Limit information forwarding and improved reporting
2. For articles that have been shared too often (say more than 10 times) and
contains topics that are deemed fake trending topics. We should make it
more clear to users that the information seems fake and allow users to
flag the content also to FB community managers.
11. Deep fake detectors
2. For videos that are being manipulated using deep fake to make appear
influencers spread fake information. They need to be detected using
topic modeling and influencer identification. Allow such content to be
flagged via explicit flags and labeling videos as manipulated video.
Prioritization I am going to prioritize the solutions using the following approach.
Based on eng cost and impact on UX (engagement, reach and impact on the goal).
My prioritized list is
10. FB Fact Checker (Table stakes) - This ought to be built as a team of humans
community managers that are monitoring fake news in the market and
reporting to experts for verification. This will ensure FB can convey to users it
is monitoring fake news in their country and providing meaningful information.
11. Deep fake detector (Since it is a huge problem that is being faced by social
media outlets)
12. Content recommendation - This can really help users discover both sides of
the story when they see random posts on FB and thus make informed
decisions.
13. Limit information forwarding
Success metrics:
10. Impact on user trust of FB - Brand survey results
11. # of fake topics being detected and their lifetime on the platform
2. Time to detect fake topics and their rate of sharing with time
11. Impact on user trust - Measured via NPS through surveys
76. Design a better house hunting experience
Clarifying/Requirements
House hunting is something I'm familiar with as someone who has rented, owned,
and invested in the past. When I was looking for a place to live, the stage of where
my life plays an important factor in determining how I look for a place.
Before I start, I would like to ask some clarifying questions for better context and
understanding.
Did FB release any app related to house hunting - No, this would be a
completely new feature.
Will this be a stand-alone or within the main FB app - I'll let you choose.
Are we thinking about releasing this in the global market or US only - I'll let
you choose.
FB Mission, Analysis & Biz Objective
Thanks. When I think about house hunting, I think about the numerous offline
conversations that I had with my friends, families, colleagues, and real estate
professionals like agents. From the perspective of someone who was single,
where I live is important in terms of location to my school or workplace and
where my friends live. From the perspective of a parent, I think about schools
for my kids, family-friendly places, and our friends who all have families.
Where I pick to live has strong implications on the quality of life for myself and
other members of my family.
FB's mission is about providing people the power to build community and
bring the world closer together. It makes sense to bring all those house
hunting conversations online given that everyone like friends and families is
already on FB.
As I think about this, I see the product vision is to help people to find a home
that is convenient and provide better life qualities.
Other considerations to think about include what would the world look like
post-COVID-19 in terms of user behavior change and trends related to
looking for places to live.
In terms of why FB would be interested in this product. Certainly, FB has been
around for a while with its reach and massive user base. In my opinion, Mark
and the team care about Retention given its huge user base and maybe
Monetization instead of acquisition and activation.
For this question, I will assume that it will be a feature part of the main FB app
for the US market initially since I'm more familiar with the real estate market
here. Given this, this feature will take those offline conversations and bring
them into FB and help the company's business goal in Retention and keeping
users engaged.
Approach
I’m going to outline how I’m going to approach this question:
Target Audience / User Groups - I'll go through the major user groups for this
product and pick one that aligns most with the business goal
Target User - I'll figure out who are the initial target users for the product and
pick one for MVP
Pain Points - Then I'll brainstorm some pain points and prioritize one for the
target user
Solution - I'll brainstorm some solutions and pick one based on impact
How does that sound?
Target Audience/User Group
To start, I might want to think about the target audience or user groups to consider
for this product:
Residents/Buyers
This group makes sense to me to pick given the potential impact. When
we are talking about conversations related to housing and community as
well as product vision, this is the largest group that we should
concentrate on.
Landlords/Sellers - this group is significant given they represent the supply
side but again given the impact, it makes more sense to concentrate on
people who are looking for a place to live.
3rd Parties/Brokers/Agents - Same reason as above. This group is part of the
transaction facilitator, but less impactful for what we are trying to achieve.
Unless you have any question, I will take a quick moment to whiteboard some ideas
that I have:
Users
Single professionals/college kids
Single professionals or college kids with the likelihood of living with other
people like roommates.
Given how busy they are with school/work, this group prioritizes
convenience in terms of location to workplace/school and cost since they
are just starting out as adults.
Mobility is high since they can move easily as singles and career options
in terms of figuring out the right jobs.
Couples without kids
Couples who are living together can be either married or unmarried.
This group still prioritizes convenience in terms of location to
workplace/school and cost, but also think about life quality in terms of
being close to the things they enjoy during their free time like being close
to the group of friends or hobbies/interests - going out for brunch,
outdoor activities, working out.
Mobility is still high, but not as big as singles since you have 2 people to
consider.
Family with kid(s)
This group has complex needs since they have young kids to think about.
Convenience is important, but it's different. These days, we are likely to
see 2 working parents so there is a strong need to balance work and life
especially with kids around. Proximity to schools, afterschool, and
healthcare is important. Working parents also mean dual income which
means stronger possibilities for bigger places to live.
Less mobility since you have 2 careers to considered plus schools and
friends.
Retirees
This group is more likely to stay around near family, friends as well as
hospitals/health care if they are much older
Less likely to move unless it's cost-related.
I would pick the family with kid(s) as the main target user to go after for MVP.
Convenience and life qualities matter more for this target user given that there are
more people/kids are considered in terms of house hunting. You can certainly make
arguments for couples without kids, but anytime when you have young children
going to schools, there are a lot of more considerations to think about. I didn't pick
single professionals and retirees since their needs are not as complex.
Pain Points/Needs
Convenience - how close is my home to work and kid's schools and the cost
of schools, after schools
Safety - how safe is my home especially since I have a kid(s) to worry about
Quality of life - what are some options near where I live in terms things I can
do with my family and friends or people that I want to connect with based on
my interests if I am relocating
Some factors/assumptions to consider before we pick a pain point to focus on.
Given the trend of going remote and rising housing costs, I predict more people will
consider relocating more than before. I think there are existing products already
addressing convenience and safety (Google Maps & Next Door/Google Search for
example). I think the quality of life is an interesting problem that aligns with our
product vision more and FB's business goal. As the family is more open to
relocating, there is a strong need to have those conversations about where to live,
what their lives are like for the family members. Users tend to have those
conversations with people they trust like friends and families. FB who is known for
providing tools to build community can certainly address these needs. This is also
a key differentiator from other competitors out there.
Ideas Brainstorming
Recommendations
Ask for Recommendations feature already existed in FB
We can leverage this by updating it to include some of the questions a
user might have including:
Schools reputation - what are the schools like for their kids
Interests - what are the top places to eat/drink/spend free time
Hobbies / outdoor activities - where can someone go for outdoor
activities like hiking/sports
Work + networking events - what are some top companies and where
are the top networking meetup events around
Search & Filter
Search can be improved based on all contents posted/shared by friends,
social graph, history
Users can search based on some cities and the results can be further
sorted and expanded such as
Places to eat/drink - videos, photos shared by network or public
Hobbies, interests - something places of interest shared by
hobbyists like sports, hiking, etc.
People to Connect - recommend friends of friends to connect in a
new town
Groups
Groups already existed in FB
We can leverage this for users to join in the neighborhood or town-based
groups where they can explore for things to do or people to connect.
Questions about what's life are like can be answered by residents already
in the group
If I have to pick based on releasing something quick for feedback, I would pick Ask
for Recommendations. We already have the feature, getting this release won't be a
major issue.
If I have to pick based on impact (which is what I recommend), I would recommend
doing a Search & Filter feature specifically for Looking for a Place. The results
should be personalized based on relevancy drawn by friends' and families' past
contents and social graphs. Users already have those conversations offline about
what's school is like, what are the things to do at a new town/neighborhood, who
do they know at new places. We provide leverage for the video, photos, and other
content shared by people in the past. Each content shared like video should also
have a messenger button like Stories in Instagram, where the user can follow up by
asking additional questions. I would also recommend content shared by friends or
friends, where the user can connect as well.
Trade-Off Risks
10. Privacy - I assume users would be concerned about their privacy the photos
or videos are shared for this product.
11. Cannibalization - As I mentioned, the goal is to help FB for retention. We
definitely want to make sure that the product doesn’t cannibalize the FB core
experience such as Newsfeed and Messenger. I would also track other
guardrail metrics such as DAUs and time spent to figure out if optimizing this
product would decrease those overall metrics.
77. How would you improve Google Drive?
https://youtu.be/bfgF_p4ruHE
78. How would you improve Netflix?

This is a pretty straightforward Improve a Product question. Let's first go over the
Improve a Product formula:
10. Ask clarifying questions
11. Identify users, behaviors, and pain points
12. State product goal
13. Brainstorm small improvements
14. Brainstorm bolder improvements
15. Measure success
16. Summarize
Now, let's begin!
Ask clarifying questions

Before we begin listing off recommendations, it's important you ask questions to
ensure you and the interviewer are on the same page.
Before we begin, I'd like to ask one quick question: is there a particular area in
general you want me to improve, for example, mobile or web? For this solution,
let's assume we want to improve the app in any way we think is best.
Identify users, behaviors, and pain points

Here we'll want to discuss the types of users using the app and go over any
specifics that make them unique. Also, indicating their pain points here is useful in
driving how you build your solutions.
Netflix typically has two types of users: casual watchers and power watchers. Age
and other demographics don't matter too much, but casual watchers are likely
watching with friends or by themselves quite infrequently (maybe 30 minutes per
day).On the other hand, we have power watchers. These types of users are on the
app for hours each and every day and often watch alone in their spare time.The
main pain point that users experience is finding the most relevant content to
watch.
State product goal

By going over the product and feature goal, we can hone in our solutions to focus
on improving a single metric. This helps create focus our solution and keep from
rambling about unnecessary features.
Netflix is looking to be the premier place for people to watch TV and movies. I'd
say the main goal of any improvement should focus on engagement. By engaging
more users on a daily basis, Netflix increases the overall value of the product to
each user. Also, since there's a theoretical limit to content that can be watched
each month, increasing engagement helps integrate Netflix further into the lives of
both casual and power users.
Brainstorm small improvements

Starting off with smaller improvements shows you're capable of executing
regardless of resources. Moving the needle with what are viewed as more unsexy
features are critical in any PM's career.
I'd love to first propose a small improvement I'd make to Netflix and then go over a
bolder idea at the end.One small improvement is to allow muting or pausing of
Netflix's feature trailers while browsing. Although it was built with good intentions
by creating more compelling media to lure users to watch content, it can also
cause a destructive experience. In fact, many people are meme'ing about this
feature which can sometimes be annoying. This small fix would lower the leave rate
when browsing and increase the likelihood of someone watching something.
Brainstorm bolder improvements
Now, let's propose a bold idea. A PM's job is to offer both small and incremental
solutions, as well as bold ideas. Show the interviewer you're capable of both.
One bold idea is to add functionality allowing users to add in non-Netflix content
they've watched to better improve the recommendation system.Users are very
likely to watch some of their content off-platform — for example on another
account with friends, through another streaming service or competitor, or at the
theatre. By not allowing functionality to add in other shows or movies a user has
watched in the past creates a blindspot in Netflix's recommendation engine.By
allowing for a more robust recommendation block, Netflix could provide even
better recommendations to users. This would then limit their navigation and idle
time on the platform, and help users engage with more content - making them
better engaged users.
Measuring success
An important aspect of being a product manager is evaluating your own features'
success. Due to this, we need to make sure we talk about different metrics we'd
use to measure the success of our implementation. Be specific here.
The main goal of our content is to increase engagement. To measure engagement
we could look at stickiness or overall time spent on the platform, but some of these
may provide data that's too unclear or not attributable.I think the best way to
measure success is active time on the platform, where we define active time as
time spent watching something. By not including navigation or idle time, it helps
normalize our data based on our most desirable behavior.All our improvements
should look to therefore increase active time spent on the platform.
Summarize
Be concise when you summarize your solution. The key is to keep it between 15 to
30 seconds in length.
Netflix is a great product that helped make tv and movie content accessible to
everyone. The main goal for any improvement should be to increase engagement.
Because of this, I'd look to add features like mood genre sorting or off-platform
recommendations. I'd look at average active time spent on platform each month by
user to determine whether these were successful features.
79. How would you integrate social into the Coinbase platform?
Ask clarifying questions:
There are a few different products within Coinbase platform - Coinbase,
Coinbase Pro, Coinbase Wallet. Which one would you like me to focus on?
Let’s assume it is Coinbase main app
Coinbase has both desktop and mobile apps - is it ok if I focus on one of
them first, and if time permits, extend it to another?
Let’s assume we focus on the mobile version
Coinbase is available in 100+ countries, can I focus on the US version?
Let’s assume yes.
Is there any specific goal I should focus on or this is a pretty open-ended
question?
Open-ended.
General structure:
Coinbase’s mission and how Coinbase app product fits overall into that
Users
Pain points
Solution
Evaluation
Coinbase is on a mission to increase economic freedom in the world. Coinbase app
lets you buy a range of cryptocurrencies, store them in its in-built wallet, and trade
them for other coins. So it is truly in line with giving people access to the open
financial system.
We’d like to integrate social into the Coinbase app. From the product standpoint, it
should align with the mission - it needs to provide tools for people to be more
connected to the open financial system. From a business perspective, we should
focus on engagement and user growth - i.e. a success for this product would be
more engagement and retention on the platform. For now, we won’t focus on
monetization or how this feature will potentially lead people to transact more
through Coinbase.
I think there are two aspects to introducing social to Coinbase:
Gamification and bragging rights
Education and community
Users
I think there are three broad customer segments on the platform - based on their
knowledge of cryptocurrencies and their trading volume.
People who only occasionally come onto the platform and spend very little on
crypto - generally not very familiar with various cryptocurrencies or protocols
People who have a relatively good understanding of crypto and invest
regularly in small amounts. They would probably invest more if they knew
more about various coins or if they could get some advice on which coins to
invest into
Power users - people that invest and trade frequently, and understand the
crypto landscape well.
The prioritization criterion is a total addressable market (TAM). I’d like to focus on
the middle user segment
Pain points
Too many coins and it is hard to know what coins could be a good investment
Investment is generally a lonely experience and lacks community support.
Especially if you are investing yourself and not talking to a financial advisor
Can’t share what they buy with others and cannot benchmark their
investments
The prioritization criteria are: 1) how acute the problem is? 2) how frequent is it?
I’d like to solve for 1 and 3.
Solution
Profiles. They can be made public to display people’s interests and positions
(but not their wallet addresses or purchasing history). This could be very
similar to what Robinhood built. It would let users share their allocation
percentage with close friends privately or publicly on social media or overall
on the platform.
Lists. People could create lists of coins that they follow, which could be
shared with others. Similar to playlists in Spotify. There could also be a
component of commenting on Lists to engage a wider community.
The prioritization criteria are Impact + Level of Effort (LOE).
Evaluation
We’d need to determine some success metrics for these features, with the broader
goal being engagement.
Tactical metrics
Total number of people using Profile feature, as a percent of overall user base
Total number of people creating Lists, as a percent of overall user base
Broader metrics:
Given that a user is using social features, does it lead to more engagement on
the platform - engagement + retention.
A number of new users - measuring whether the social aspect is driving more
people to the platform.
North-star metric:
A total number of transacting users on the platform.
As a discussion point, we could look at the risks of introducing social aspects into
investment. This can be potentially dangerous as people would treat
investment/trading as a game, and not make smart money decisions - being driven
more by emotional motivations, rather than based on risk-reward calculations.
80. How would you improve engagement for the TrueCaller app?
https://youtu.be/SH0VTe2gevQ
81. Design Lyft for kids.

I would like to ask a few clarifying questions
10. Lyft for kids: Does this mean we want to design a ride sharing app for kids?
(Assuming yes)
11. Do we have any existing features catered to kids? (Assuming no)
12. Lyft has a lot of features. I am going to assume basic table stake features
which Lyft already has as:
Ability to call for a ride
Ride tracking
10. Are there any goals that we would like to achieve with this feature?
If we look at current market conditions, Lyft has biggest threat from Uber.
So gaining market share should be the goal of this exercise considering lifecycle of
where Lyft is as a company.
The way I would like to approach this is Define Goal -> Look at users -> Pick a
unique pain point -> Come up with solutions
Goal : To gain new users and capture as much market share as possible
Users: Here we want to build a ride share app for kids.
Here I would like to consider kids aged 8-16.
Reasons: 1) This age group seems to have maximum impact in terms of
opportunity size. Post 16 can drive by themselves. Pre 8 kids are too young and
parents might prefer to driver younger kids who need car seats, etc.
10. 8-16 kids are older. Most of them should be able to read, use smartphones
and communicate well.
So when it comes to users
10. Kids (ages 8-16) 2) Parents/Guardians of these kids 3)Drivers of the kids
Kids 8-16 are still not fully independent. Most of them would need parent
permission to install apps, use apps, etc. Hence I would like to look at pain points
of parents and solve for them when designing ride share for kids.
As stated earlier : ability to request rides, track rides are table stake features but
we can look at the flows.
Pain points of parents:
10. Currently parents have to order a ride for their kids. This requires a lot of out
of app communication with the kids. Time, location, etc. This process is hard
to manage. Parent might be busy at the time the kid needs a ride.
11. Safety of kids. As a parent it is very hard to trust someone who you don't
know personally with your kid. Parents don't know anything about the driver
(background, driving history, sexual offenders, etc.) who is supposed to pick
the child up other than ratings.
12. Wait time. There is an uncertainty if drivers will be available or not for live
rides. So as a parent, I worry if my child has been matched with a driver or
not. As a parent I would not want my child to wait for a very long time on the
street, etc.
Out of these I would like to solve for the safety issue.
The main reasons being
10. This is an extremely important feature kind of a deal breaker when it comes to
kids.
11. Uber has not done anything in particular to tackle this issue. So this might be
a good chance to solve this pain point and gain market share
12. There are some local startups that try to solve this but their market
penetration is not as much. So Lyft has that advantage
13. Branding. Lyft as a brand has more trust perception than Uber or other
competitors. So if we add something to solve the safety issue we will only
boost the brand image in a positive way.
Solutions
10. Pre vetted drivers
Give the ability for parents to add a kids profile
Kids can have a lyft app on their phone tied to the parent app (pairing via
code/email verification)
Kids can request rides the same way as in the main Lyft app
All the drivers that get matched with the kids will be pre vetted
Drivers will have extensive background checks, driver license history
verification
Driver personal info can be made available to parents in case of
emergency
Tracking of the ride and notification with a emergency call incase the ride
goes off track
Payment managed via the parent app
10. Choose your driver
Parents can choose certain drivers to drive their kids around
Parents can select 5 drivers in their order of preference who will get matched
with the kids.
This way the parents can know that the same person/s is going to drive their
child around and not get a random assignment everytime.
Tracking of the ride and notification with a emergency call incase the ride
goes off track
Payment managed via the parent app
10. Code word trigger
Incase the kid feels like he/she is in danger, they can say/type a pre decided
code word or push certain buttons on the phone.
This code word will trigger SOS signal to parents and Lyft
Parents will get notified with the driver details
Also 911 call will get triggered with all driver and route details
Since it a pre decided code work between the kids, parents and Lyft, the
driver wouldn't know about it.
Out of these the way I would prioritize between the solutions
10. Impact (How many people would benefit)
It seems like 1) and 2) would help most users since 3) will be valid only in
emergency situations
10. Investment (What is the effort)
I think 1) is pre requisite to 2) All drivers should be vetted with extensive
background checks especially if they are going to drive kids around.
Hence I would like to pick 1)
It will give an opportunity to test if parents are interested in such a service before
we make any more investment in this area.
83. If you have infinite resources, and the year is 2025, how would you
improve Google Translate?
I have a few clarification questions and some assumptions - Go ahead
5 years and infinite resources, I have no constraints in terms of making
technology advancements - Yes, no constraint
I’ll focus on improving the lives of people and changing the ways people use
Google Translate and may expand the use to different products.. not just
existing interface - Cool
Let's take a step back and think why people need translation - okay
For business communication
To communicate with people who speak a different language, not in business
but casually
Watch movies, plays etc., basically to enjoy and learn the art and culture of
different countries with different languages
Understand signs or menus or books in different languages
Communicate our feelings and understand someone else's to/of a person
speaking different language
Basically we need translation to communicate and understand different languages.
(Philosophically and passionately) If we could solve this problem we can actually
UNITE the world - So what are you proposing (poker face)
Sure I'll take a little time to jot down some ideas - Okay
Okay, so my proposal for the future of Google Translate is “One World”. The vision
of One World is to “Unite the world by removing the language barrier”. Let me
explain to you what this product will do - I am excited
Features:
Translate the audio from any language to any language (Not subtitles but
dubbing)
Translate the script of any language to any language (Reading and writing)
It will have different settings for example business, casual, urban etc. based
on who you are communicating with.
Let’s me walk you through the design and a few use-cases of this product. But
before that just wanted to check-in and see if there is any confusion - I think I’ll let
you explain the use-cases and design and see if I have any question
Sure, so One World will be integrated with headphones, microphones, and eye-
glasses. This way you can speak, understand, read, and type different languages.
Now imagine:
You are in China and go to a restaurant. You are wearing One World
earphones w/microphones. Server comes to take the order and speak fluent
Mandarin, but you don’t hear mandarin, you hear casual American english..
No struggle, no confusion... You respond in English and the server hears
Mandarin .. friendly, casual, no confusion... Both of you are using One World
products - Interesting
Someone in a rural part of India.. who only understands or speaks their native
language. He can watch any video in any language because he is using One
World headset, everything seems natural.. The voice, the dubbing, context..
Emotions, Feelings, Tones don't get lost in the translation if you use One
World
You go to Italy and have One World eye glasses.. But you don’t see Italian
script at the airport or street signs or restaurant menus.. You just see the
language you prefer to read..
In essence, One World will remove the barrier of language from the world... When I
imagine One World, I think of a world where you are not lost or need any external
help as you can read, write, speak, understand, and communicate in any language.
It’s in contact lenses, eyeglasses, sun-glasses, head-phones, wireless ear-plugs.,
you even have it in your smartphone..
You can read any book or watch any video.. No subtitles required.. The experience
will be extremely seamless.. For eg. all the external noise will be canceled and you
hear only the language you selected.
You can talk and write using different settings.. Business settings for businesses,
Urban setting to communicate with your international friends in school.. so many
possibilities
This is the future I see for Google Translate with unlimited resources in next 5 years
- It’s actually a bold vision
Yeah but there could be downsides. The downside I think of:
Latency in translation will nullify the experience.. Reading or listening
Mistakes in translations during business meeting or even in casual
conversations can have very negative consequences for the users
It has to be perfect... The only incremental release possible is the addition of
languages and the feature of hearing the translation in the voice of the person
speaking..
84. How would you authenticate reviews for Facebook Locals
Q: So FB locals is a standalone app that has reviews of local businesses? What is
the current state of the product?
A: Yes. It recently relaunched and branded.
Facebooks mission is to connect people and help them build community, FB local
fits into this by using the power of the large social network to surface businesses
and events and uses signals such as reviews to build trust and provide value. So its
of the utmost importance that the reviews are authentic.
Goal: Improve authenticity of reviews to increase trust and usefulness of facebook
locals
Stakeholders:
Local businesses
Consumers
Given our goal is to to increase trust and usefulness it makes the most sense to
focus on consumers. There are vastly more of them and if they don't feel like the
reviews are trustworthy they wont use the product and might migrate to
competitors such as yelp, google maps etc.
As far as consumers go we could break it down by activity level:
leaves reviews and reads reviews
reads reviews but doesn't leave reviews
new user of the product
It makes the most sense to focus on those that read reviews and new users.
Reasons why a review might appear to be inauthentic:
Profile looks inauthentic
Review looks inauthentic
Soln can be both about how we detect and hide inauthentic reviews and how we
surface signals that something is authentic:
Profile looks inauthentic
Decrease ranking and or hide reviews from profiles that seem to be shill
accounts (new, no friends, don't have normal FB activity)
Use ML/AI to flag
Surface signals and activities that increase confidence, ex: FB user since
XX, # of reviews
Verified identity flag, user uploaded ID etc
Review looks inauthentic
Use machine learning to find/flag accounts with specious reviews that
don't seem relevant
Surface signals that verify that reviewer actually visited business, amazon
has a concept of verified reviews b/c they know somebody bought
something, could we do something similar here like: "verified visitor" b/c
they checked in to the business? We could also do something along the
lines of looking at the metadata on any photos (likely taken on a mobile
phone) to confirm it was indeed taken there
Enforce minimum length on reviews, short reviews such as nice or good
are both unhelpful and seem fake
Use crowdsourcing to bubble up the best/most helpful reviews
Allow users to flag suspicious reviews
Based on our brainstorm I would categorize these by effort and impact.
Top items and why:
Using AI/ML to detect and hide reviews from inauthentic profiles, we should
already have such as system to detect fake accounts, there is a massive
effort for fake news that we can draft off of (effort low, impact high)
"Verified visitor" badge to show somebody actually visited a location is a
strong signal of authenticity, we'd need to build some user education but this
functionality also pretty much already exists (effort med, impact high).
Conversely you can also look at IP etc and use this as a negative signal in
ranking.
Surface signals and activities that increase confidence, ex: FB user since XX,
# of reviews. We have all of this data and its a minor UX change to
accommodate (effort low, impact high)
So to recap authenticity is important because trust is a foundation of strong
communities, we can tackle the authenticity of profiles and reviews and I would
prioritize the three items mentioned above that are high impact and low/medium
effort that (1) leverage existing or create new signals of authenticity (2) leverage
existing functionality to flag/hide inauthentic reviews.
85. Design a product for wine drinkers.

Before I jump in, will this product be part of the FB ecosystem? If it's up to me,
although I think wine has a great social element and is shared when people are
connecting...I would hesitate to create a product that promotes alcohol
consumption on FB. So I would choose to have it live outside of FB.
With that, let me start by making sure I understand the product correctly, talk
about some metrics we can target. Then we can think through who our users are
and outline some of their needs. Finally, we can come up with some ideas for this
product and prioritize what we want to go to market with. At a high-level, the
product is going to be designed for people that have an interest in drinking wine
Looking at the journey of wine drinkers, there are people of different levels of
sophistication. Wine drinkers may want to discover, learn, buy, share their
experience, evaluate quality, look for deals, look for flavor profiles, etc. As we
launch this product, the goal should focus on acquisition and engagement. If there
is engagement, then we will be able to eventually monetize. For this, we want to
optimize for acquisition and retention. A product like wine has communities that
can offer strong network effects.
GOALS Since its a new product, I would like to set our primary goal to be # of
users' activated and secondary goal of MAU (people may not engage in wine daily,
but monthly).
USERS
Looking at the wine-drinking Journey, we can think about drinkers, producers,
distributors, critiques.
Wine drinkers:
10. Sophisticated well versed wine consumers who really know their wine
11. Frequent drinkers who enjoy wine, but don't really know the makeup and
composition of wine. They know what tasted good to them, but not much
beyond that.
12. Casual wine drinkers, who drink wine socially, but haven't really shown a
strong interest in wine.
13. People who are completely new to wine, don't know what they prefer.
Other users
10. Wine critiques who review wines
11. Wine producers (wineries)
12. Distributors (wine shops, tasting rooms, supermarkets, etc) Looking at
potential users, I think it makes the most sense to target frequent wine
drinkers who have an interest in wine, but aren't terribly versed in the
particulars of wine drinking - this gives us the biggest market potential (lots
of people drink wine, and lots of them don't really know the details behind it).
The other groups could get value from this product, but I don't think that
sophisticated users would want to rely on a new product (they are very likely
loyal to their sources). For those people who drink rarely or casually, a
product is not going to get them to shift their preferences.
Let's look at some of the needs of frequent wine drinkers who arent so-called
experts:
10. They are looking for deals on wine or fair value of wine
11. They may want to understand their flavor profile and know how to identify
what they like
12. They want to know what wine experts recommend
13. They may want to save and track the different wines they enjoyed in the past
14. They may want to know how long a bottle of open wine is good for
15. They may want to know how to store wine they have to make sure it doesn't
go bad
16. They may want to know when to open a bottle for optimal flavor
FEATURES To guide our features we can aim to create a product that introduces
the masses into the ins & outs of the wine world.
10. Deals / Fair Value: Aggregator that looks at available wine deals relative to fair
market value. Users could either get alerts when their particular choice of
wine is available % below fmv. Or their could be a weekly deals list of best
available values.
11. Flavor profile: To help users understand flavor profile, they can identify which
wines they enjoy, based on that the product can understand desired flavor
notes, optimal regions, years, etc. It can then suggest wines that are most
likely to align with flavor profiles.
12. Experts: Users can follow experts to get their take on wines, see their ratings.
People can then test and see what experts are best for them. We can also
consider creating a community where experts and wine drinkers of all sorts
interact.
13. Timing of wine: Users can see how long wine is supposed to age to reach
optimal levels, and with that see if a wine is spoiled based on simple
questions they answer based on what they taste.
14. Broad education on wine: How to pair wine, what to look for in certain brands,
etc. I would prioritize these based on a simple value and simplicity scale from
1 to 3
Priorities Based on that I would prioritize 1 > 2 > 5> 4 > 3To launch, I would focus
on piloting with major wine distributors to promote this "app". There is a shared
interest because users can become more and more interested in wine and thereby
spend more money with distributors.
To summarize. I suggest we design a wine app that targets frequent wine drinkers
who arent necessarily wine experts. This is an engaged wine audience who would
more than likely be interested in improving their wine-drinking experience. We can
focus on basic needs like price and discovery...and continue on by sparking
aspirations about becoming wine experts themselves.
86. How would you monetize Spotify?

Describe the spotify app & discuss if there are any monetization techniques
already in place. Q. Is there any specific user segment to be targeted for
monetization ? Or identify opportunities across all ?
Structure-
10. Identify all user segments
11. For all user segments, identify pain points and prioritize them
12. For pain points
2. are there substitutes / compete solutions, apps ?
3. is the issue > price of solution ?
4. is the benefit > price of solution ?
13. For every pain point
2. is there an existing solution, for the solution workflow ; can there be
monetization ?
3. if there is no existing solution, can we develop a solution that can be
monetized?
User segments -
10. Listeners
11. Creators
Creators need an audience and spotify provides a platform for the creators to
reach an audience. Pain points of creators -
10. identify an audience
11. publish content
12. analyze content performance
13. act on analysis - improve, monetize, etc
Prioritized pain points: 2, 3, 1, 4
Solutions -
10. publish content:
2. platform, tools to publish content.
11. analyze content performance:
2. analysis tools to measure content performance independently, in
different cohorts, compete creators
11. identify an audience
2. ability to filter out profile and define cohorts of consumers
11. act on analysis
2. manage the content as per performance.
content marketing
content monetization
cohort targeting
Monetization opportunities -
10. platform fee to publish content
2. competing opportunities :
1. publishing through private labels - costly, lengthy process, high
competition
2. publishing on youtube, instagram, twitter - wider audience / not
specific to music
3. publishing on other music apps platform - spotify more well known
and higher quatity of qualit audience
5. monetization:
1. platform publishing fee
10. tools to publish, analyze content performance, user profiles for cohort
analysis 3. multi-tier access can be provided to platform 4. tools can be
provided with a subscription access
11. act on analysis - content marketing, monetization
2. fees can be charged to include song as part of curated lists/ marketing
strategies
3. channels can be made subscription access for consumers and
commission can contribute to monetization
Solution prioritization -
9. platform fee to publish content
2. high impact
10. act on analysis - content marketing, monetization
2. medium impact, low hanging fruit
10. tools to publish, analyze content performance, user profiles for cohort
analysis
2. high impact, high effort to build base platform of tool collection
88. How would you improve Headspace?
https://youtu.be/drDL4ac1_fA
89. Redesign the city park experience.

https://youtu.be/LIqWUuzNeK8
90. Launch a new mode of transportation for Lyft.

I would ask what are the currently supported modes of transport. Assuming cars,
luxury cars, transit. Bike and scooter is off limits.
Also assuming Lyft is available only in the US currently.
Then I would start off with the Goal.
Why does Lyft want to launch a new mode of transport.
Assuming possible reasons in order of priority:
9. To gain market share
10. To gain new users (riders/drivers)
11. Improve experience of users (riders/drivers)
Do we have restrictions on country that we can launch in? Assuming no.
Are there any other constraints to keep in mind? Assuming no
Company: Lyft's vision is to improve people's lives with the world's best
transportation. So launching a new mode of transport directly aligns with their
vision.
Industry leaders: Uber, taxis, Ola, Grab, Lime, Byrd (depending on the country)
Users: Riders, Drivers
Market conditions: Looking at US market, Uber is there and between Uber and Lyft
most existing modes of transport at covered like cars, luxury cars, no
bikes/scooters. Some possible modes of transport left are: Shuttle buses, Vans,
charter planes, boats
Looking at other markets in the world, there are modes of transport which are
public and very commonly used. Eg. In India, auto rickshaw is a very commonly
used mode of transport. Uber is in India but doesn't support auto rickshaws yet in
all cities.
Considering markets world wide based on population:
China, India, USA, Indonesia
China is a difficult market. Usually hard to get into due to lots of rules and
regulations. Main mode of transport is rails.
India is next most populous with different modes of transport like : taxi, auto
rickshaw, buses, etc.
USA is next but most modes of transport are covered already or are off limits. So
only new ones that I can think of here are shuttle buses or airplanes.
I would make sense to market size some options at this point. Going by sheer
population numbers and since our goal is to gain market share and get more
number of users here are a few options
9. Lyft auto in India
Impact : Population is 1.4 billion. Assuming 70% use auto
rickshaw = 98 million. Keeping to major cities: 60 billion
Other factors: Entry into new market. Collaborators, market
specialist, marketing, partnerships
10. Lyft shuttle buses in US
Impact : Population is 300 million. Shuttle buses used in
major cities. Assuming 70% live in cities: 210 million.
People who would use shuttle 2% = 45million Other factors:
No other major costs since existing market, Collaborators,
market specialist, marketing, partnerships
11. Lyft airplane in US
Impact : Population is 300 million. Shuttle buses used in
major cities. Assuming 70% live in cities: 210 million.
People who would use airplanes 0.5% = ~10million
Other factors: finding pilots is harder. People with planes to spare is hard. If
Lyft needs to source the plans then it will be too expensive. Flying is not
usually considering on demand mode of transport. It is much more planned.
So I think it makes sense for Lyft to try to launch Lyft auto rickshaw in India.
Reasons:
9. Maximum number of users (riders and drivers) that can be added
10. Competition to Uber and possible gain market share in major cities where
Uber auto isn't there
11. New market entry and establish brand presence in India which is one of the
biggest economies.
Here is Launch Plan:
9. Marketing details
10. Government relations
11. Establish Channels of outreach
12. Get partnerships with auto drivers
13. Have a fall back plan for error scenarios
91. Design a product for Facebook to fight Covid-19.
Q: should this be part of FB or a standalone product?
A: no hard requirements, it just has to be something that FB would launch
Q: is there a specific region we should be designing for? is it ok that we focus on
the US as its the current epiccenter of the pandemic?
A: Yes that's fine
Q: fighting covid-19 is a very broad goal, what if we translated this into decrease
the spread of covid-19 - there's multiple ways we could do that but it makes it a bit
more concrete.
A: Yes that sounds good
Ok thanks for answering those few questions. What I'd like to do to tackle this
problem is:
(1) Talk about FB mission and why this is important
(2) list out personas and prioritize one
(3) brainstorm painpoints and prioritize one
(4) come up with solutions and evaluate them
(5) discuss what would go out in MVP
Ok so facebooks goal is to connect the world and help them build a sense of
community. This is especially important right now during the pandemic as we're all
stuck home and we're all in this together. Our ability to combat COVID depends on
having a shared understanding and ability to act for the common good. FB has a
unique position and I'd even say burden at act as we all are spending a lot of more
time online and its a way to connect, get information etc.
Persona's:
(1) State governments: with the lack of federal leadership and coordination states
and governors in particular are key people in fighting covid19
(2) healthcare workers: healthcare workers are the front line and are risking their
lives everyday to treat others, they are doing an admirable job in the face of real
adversity
(3) elderly: over 60 might live with their spouse or perhaps alone - non retirement
home situation
(4) those not at increased risk:
Taking into account the size of the populations and the potential impact facebook
can have I think it makes the most sense to focus on the elderly/those at increased
risk.
Painpoints:
(1) Loneliness, social distance calls for those over 60 to be isolated from others.
They can no longer visit their children or grandchildren
(2) Need to shop for necessities (food, medication etc) but are advised to not go
out
(3) Increased sedentary lifestyle as they can't go out anymore
(4) Anxiety, hard to keep up with the latest - things change on a daily basis and you
don't know what sources to trust
Of these painpoints we should focus on loneliness, this is something that facebook
is best positioned to help and loneliness has been highly correlated with negative
health outcomes in multiple studies I'm aware of.
Soln:
(1) VR: FB acquired oculus and what if we created a virtual space say similar to a
senior center or community center where the elderly could virtually congregate.
You could even think of this as something like a thirdspace where you could go to
meet people or just kind of hang out and do your own thing while not being alone.
Eventually if you scaled this up you could have entry points to healthcare providers
and government services that you could access here. To me this is a really
interesting idea as until we have a vaccine many have called for the elderly to
continue to isolate even after we re-open the US.
(2) Daily checkin group messenger: What if we created a private chat for a family
or other unit such as senior friends group and added in some kind of chatbot
functionality. It could have a daily reminder to take your vitals (temp/ox levels) and
report in that you're safe providing a ritual/daily touchbase. If the elderly or
somebody didn't checkin the other people in the group could be alerted. The
chatbot could also help prompt conversation by sharing inspirational quotes, or
asking/taking polls such as whats the first thing you'll do when you can go out etc.
(3) Facebook public portal roulette: what if you could publicly enable (with an opt
in) the ability to chat with somebody else that wanted to chat at the same time?
you might be able to set preferences like distance, age etc.
Of these three solutions I'd prioritize the daily checkin family messenger. It builds
on top of existing messenger functionality and adds a positive daily ritual. My
understanding is that some of the basic chatbot funtionality is already developed
for pages and we could reuse that as well. It's also really easy to extend this to the
very isolated that don't have an existing unit, you could allow people to opt in to
join an "elderly support group"
92. Design an educational product for Facebook.

Assumptions:
9. Part of the core FB product and not standalone app/
10. Education for children in 13-18 range
Goal: To improve the education of children while building stronger social networks
with their family/friends and thus further the mission of the company of bringing
the world together and offering tools to form communities.
Key user segments:
9. Students (middle and high school)
10. Teachers
11. Parents
For the purpose of this exercise, I would like to focus on the student user group,
since I believe they are relatively larger in size and any change on them will have a
bugger impact on the goal and FB’s mission.
The specific student persona I want to focus on initially are:
9. On the east and west coasts
10. Have access to high-speed internet, tech-savvy
11. Age range 13-18
12. Often are managing school life, extracurriculars, and work sometimes
13. Have a hard time stayin on top of things and getting help from peers
Key problems faced:
9. Collaborating with friends on exams, homework etc to learn things
10. Avoiding social interaction in schools due to fear or bullying etc
11. Some students suffer with ADD, Dyslexia and are not able to get the right aids
for learning due to lack of personal attention.
12. Personal mental health issues faced by students due to family issues etc that
affects their learning
Overall the main problem boils down to not being able to get the personal help they
need to learn things in a way that makes sense to them in a supportive
environment.
Some solutions to solve this:
9. Personalized FB classroom groups
2. A private FB group by the school for each grade with all students and
teachers. Within each group, you can have office hours to ask questions
to teachers, students, TAs via video chat. Collaborate with students
anytime via messenger/WhatsApp.
10. VR based interactive learning rooms/groups
2. Allow for a VR based interactive medium to interact and learn with other
students and ask questions from teachers.
10. AR-based support in FB groups to help with homework and assignments.
2. Allow students to annotate homework assignments drawings etc while
collaborating and
In order to prioritize these solutions, I will measure them along the following
dimensions: 1. Impact on UX (reach of users, impact on FB mission, impact on user
delight), 2. Engineering Effort
Since we already have 1 and 2 by FB via groups and occulus, they will require
minimal engineering efforts to redesign them to suit our specific needs. AR-based
document annotation isn’t there on FB will require a lot of effort so it the highest in
engineering effort.
In terms of the impact on UX, I believe #1 (personalized FB groups) will have the
highest impact due to the reach on # of users, VR will have lesser impact since
very few people will have access to occulus.
Thus, I would pick #1 as the feature to prioritize.
The expected user journey for it will be as following.
9. FB in conjunction with schools and teachers will setup private groups for
students and teachers.
10. Teachers and TAs will be allowed to setup office hours with their areas of
expertise
11. Students will be able to ask each other questions and collaborate via group-
based chats, reply with photos etc of the work they are doing. Get feedback
from the teachers without being constrained by regular school hours.
12. Students will be able to record videos of how they are thinking and hold live
sessions with other students to do group study.
Success Metrics:
9. DAU and WAU metrics for students and teachers who are part of these
groups
10. # of office hours held and questions asked/answered
Risks and Tradeoffs:
9. Users (students) get cannibalized into this feature and their engagement with
other features drop
10. Students get distracted due to this feature and may end up spending more
time on FB socializing and not actually studying
93. How would you design & launch a tinyurl kind of product?
https://youtu.be/1Yb2jIf-Gr0
94. How would improve AirPods Pro?

Me: Thanks for the question. I have a clarifying question, how the actionable data
points are arriving? Is it based on direct user feedback or from the iPhone
integrated with the Airpod Pro?
Interviewer: You can consider both.
Me: Ok, let me take a minute to structure my approach.
Me: First, I would begin by establishing the types of users of Airpod Pros, and I
come up with two:
9. the casual user that goes for a run once in a while or listen to music 1-2 hours
a day.
10. the pretty intense user that is almost the full day with the Airpod Pro in their
ears, either listening to music, taking calls, listening to podcasts during their
commute or even using the integrated Siri to set up alarms or ask for
directions.
I am going to focus on the second type since we can gather much more data
points, is that ok?
Interviewer: Ok.
Me: I believe there are three major use cases for the Airpods Pro user:
9. listen to music or podcasts
10. take calls
11. interact with Siri
In any of those three cases, the user can have the 'remove sound' feature on or off.
Now for those use cases, I believe there are these pain points:
9. if the 'remove sound' feature is on, the person might not hear when someone
else from outside is going to talk with him/her
10. the battery is still an issue and you can't charge the earbuds while using it
11. the Siri interactions might not be fruitful or perhaps users might find it
difficult to interact with Siri while talking on the phone (I am almost sure that
this is not possible at the moment)
For those use cases, some of the data points that Apple might get are:
How often that 'remove sound' is being toggled on and off throughout the
day - the hypothesis here is that if this is being used all the time, the person
needs to keep switching the mode and this is somewhat painful, imagine
having to do it 10+ times every day.
How often the battery is being put in the charger with no battery left
What is the feedback on Siri? How many cases do we hear complaints about
not having the right answer or not being able to answer a request?
I am going to prioritize the battery issue, given that we are talking about heavy
users (10+ hours/day) they won't be able to use the airpods with only one charge
(currently at around 4-5 hours).
Some of the features I might think about solving the battery issue are:
the most obvious one is improving the battery in the airpods as well as the
charging speed in the case, though this is marginal and not innovative
over-the-air wireless charging capabilities would make charging the airpods
from a small distance possible. Let's say for instance that the user is sitting at
his desk and the wireless charger is 3 feet away
easily replaceable batteries - every airpod could come with two batteries that
can be easily replaceable and recharged by the user. While one is being
recharged the other one is being used. The tradeoff here is that the user
would have to stop using the product for 1-2 minutes to change the battery
everyday
I will focus on the second solution since it's the most innovative and the one that
would practically solve the pain of the user.
Imagine a wireless charger that you could carry with you to any place, office, car
that could charge your apple airpods from a distance of up to 10 feet while you're
using it. The charger would allow you to use your airpods all day without a break
while maintaining the battery full when needed - like your trip to your favorite lunch
spot.
The trade-offs here are:
you still need to carry your wireless charger with you, whether in the car or
your office or maintain one in each of those locations
you would be constrained to certain geography to keep charging it
Some of the metrics that I would evaluate with this new feature would be:
how charged are the airpods when they physically touch the charger or stop
being used
The thesis here is that if this is working as expected, the user would
never run out of battery again
are the airpods being used for longer periods now the 5-hour battery
constraint was lifted? What's the average use time for those intense users?
95. How many messages in gmail per second?
Great question Evan, could you please help me with some context.
9. Do you want me to consider Gsuite & Gmail on consumer or limit it to one or
the other segment?
2. Limit to B2C on GMAIL
10. Promotions/ Notifications do you want me to include them?
2. Exclude
10. Would you want to consider only Gmail ecosystem or Gmail to All types of
users?
2. Any email recipient
10. I would like to start with US as a geo and extrapolate would you be good with
that?
2. That's ok.
That helps, thanks. Give me a moment to collect my thoughts.
As a broad stroke I will use this formula to guide my estimation = # of Email
Accounts * Average # of emails received. As I consider additional factors, I might
refine the formula as needed.
9. Given I am focused on US market, there are an estimated 330 million
Americans.
10. Given the internet penetration of 90% - We are working with ~300 million
Americans.
11. I would layer in Age demographic and limit the audience to 15-75 year which
brings us to ~200 million.
12. At this stage, based on my personal experience I will make an assumption for
the purpose of our call that a user would use 2 emails on average…
2. Could I answer any questions on that assumption, or would you be ok to
go with that assumption?
10. That brings our total email account count to 400 million.
2. I also think the formula would be better if we go with # of email accounts
instead of # of users, so I updated the original formula of # of Users *
Average # of emails received.
# of Users = 200 million
of Email Accounts = 400 million
Now let's shift attention to compute # of Average emails that these email accounts
receive. For that I want to answer one questions, are all email accounts equal? I
would say No. Why? Consider different user segments like
9. Busy Professional
10. Student & Young Adults
11. Small Medium Business Owner
12. Average User
Their email pattern would be considerably different. Both based on my lived
experience and anecdotal understanding from my peers I would then classify users
in to Low, Medium & High email frequency.
9. Low frequency user would say receive 25 or less emails per day
10. Medium frequency user receive 50 or less emails in a day
11. High frequency or power user would receive 100 or less emails in a day
Assuming a distribution of 25%, 50% & 25% the math would be.
9. (400 * .25) * 25 = 2,500
10. (400 * .5) * 50 = 10,000
11. (400 * .25) * 100=10,000
Do you want me to double click into why I choose that distribution?
22,500 million lets round that to 24 Billion emails per day or say 1 Billion emails per
hour…breaking it down that would be ~15 million emails per minute or 250K emails
per second.
Think about the numerous subscriptions that every individual has and their
monthly invoice, payment emails, the emails from your school, the emails from your
social circle etc. If I visualize all those numerous use cases a modern consumer is
surrounded with that sounds reasonable…that Gmail would be handling an
estimated 250K emails per seconds.
96. How would you design Instacart for business?
Assumptions
Instacart for Business is core Instacart with additional features and
capabilities tailored to businesses.
Users
Potential user segments:
Office managers (Focus here)
Entrepreneurs/small business owners
Restauranteurs
Opportunities (pain points, needs, problems)
Many places don’t offer same-day shipping.
Inconvenient to physically go out and purchase these items from a store
if urgent
Hard to predict an interval to re-order items to keep supply available for
employees (inaccurate)
Hard to solicit feedback from employees on what they want; are there
specific dietary restrictions or item/brand preferences they have for
what’s ordered
Costly to use last-minute, on-demand delivery services (fees
Ideas
The application makes predictions of the order amount and frequency
depending on previous re-orders, and other inputs (e.g., staff size, days
open, time of year)
Automatically order for you based on predictions
The ability for employees to upvote for things they’d like to see stocked,
or custom request for office supplies materials they know they’ll need in
the near future
Subscription model for business or variable pricing model depending on
how soon the items are needed
Vision
Instacart is the first and only stop for businesses to handle their food and
office supply needs. It’s not just for last-minute things, it’s for everything.
Experience
Imagine you’re an office manager and you need to order additional food
and supplies for the office.
You’re not entirely sure what people want or need so you go into Instacart
and send out a link where employees can log in on the laptops or mobile
phones to upvote/downvote things, and or request certain products.
You get the results of this and Instacart recommends the items and
quantity. You have the ability to manually modify the order. Instacart gives
you the option of automatically ordering going forward
Pitfalls
Can Instacart for Business be a financially viable option for things you
don’t need last minute or from places that don’t offer to ship?
Is the value prop compelling enough that people use Instacart exclusive
or sign-up for a membership?
Risk that prediction feature could be just noise and detract from the
experience.
97. How would you improve Amazon's marketplace?
Before getting into the solution aspect, let us revisit Amazon's mission.
Mission: Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than
competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence,
and long-term thinking.
Participants: Therefore any improvement in the marketplace should be in sync with
this thought process. Participants in the marketplace have both buyers and sellers.
We can improve the platform either of them or both of them.
Whom are we solving for? : For the sake of this answer, we need to understand why
we are trying to improve the marketplace. Amazon is already doing a lot for
customers by providing Prime services. So, maybe it's time to focus on sellers.
Strategic outlook: Newer marketplaces like Facebook, Instagram and Shopify are
emerging and offering competition to Amazon. Therefore it is important for the
organisation to better serve its marketplace sellers. While we are at it, we should
ensure that the buyers are not negatively affected.
Pain Points of Sellers: (1)Low take rate (2)High commissions (3)Low conversions
(4)Concentration of GMV in the hands of few sellers (5)Lack of awareness /
marketing/ reviews on the platform.
All pain points are worth solving. But the one with immediate benefits and low
hanging fruit for amazon could be pain point (1). A seller should not be stocking
something that is usually not bought on the internet or not popular on Amazon in
the first place. If the product is usually bought on the internet then Amazon should
help increase the take rate.
Potential Solutions: (1)Providing marketing tools and training to sellers. (2)Ensure
equal visibility of products for all sellers on the platform. (3)Hire professional third
party reviewers and ask them to rate products. Provide more importance to
professional reviews on the platform. (4)Suggest sellers to pivot to products that
have higher take rate (5)Limit number of products in each category to avoid
decision fatigue on part of the customer (and thereby increase take rate). (6) Help
sellers to present their product better on the Amazon platform.
Evaluation of Potential Solutions: (1) Has limited possibility of being successful on
Amazon as it has its own ad business now. This could also drive away users from
Amazon to Instagram/Facebook marketplaces.
(2) Can be done by changing UI. But it might result in poorer experience for buyers.
One can show all products in a grid. This will make it harder for buyers to make
purchase decisions.
(3)Amazon currently has a community review program called 'Vine'. But it is drawn
from buyer audience. This could dent user trust in reviews. But if the trust can be
built through informative and unbiased content, professional reviews can influence
user behaviour and increase take rate of items that don't have enough reviews/
sales.
(4) Can be helpful to ensure sellers success but probably, it can reduce number of
choices for future customers. It can be done only in extreme cases. For example, a
product with single digit sales in three successive quarters can be taken off the
platform.
(5) This is good for sellers but bad for Amazon revenues and customer choice. But
it is a good idea to have an upper limit for each product. Doesn't make sense to
have 10,000 different combs without any significant product differentiation. The
optimum number can be found for each product with the help of data scientists.
(6) This is a low hanging fruit. It can be provided free of cost to customers.
Recommendation: Implement (3) on pilot and see the impact before scaling. (6)
can be implemented at scale. (4) and (5) can be implemented on a case to case
basis.
Metrics: Metrics can be monitored for each category of products. Check positive
change in take rates for bottom 50 percentile sellers. Check overall increase in take
rate of products on Amazon platform on a quarterly basis.
Risks: Some purchases might be seasonal in nature. Thus it is important to see if
the analysis or measures are taken for new products or those which have been on
Amazon platform for more than 2 years. Ideally, the measures should be taken for
older products.
98. Design an app to plan road trips.

**Why | **5 min
**Who | **3 min
**What | **5 min
Use this format
How
How would we know that the solution was successful
Task success rate
Task completion time
Engagement
Retention
Conversion
User Acquisition
99. Design a financial product for kids.
Honestly, I would’ve loved something like this when I was younger. I couldn’t wait
till the day I was 18 so I could start investing and would read personal finance
books on random topics. Clarification Questions
Kids is a very broad term, is there a specific age range you had in mind or
would you want me to determine that myself? << I’d like to see you do that
during customer segmentation >>
I will assume that this will start off as an application, and then later can be
integrated on a computer/desktop.
Is there a specific geography we want to target? I imagine that personal
finance goals and regulations can vary based on location and want to ensure
that the product appeals to whichever market we choose. << Let’s assume
North America >>
I’m assuming that I am a PM at Microsoft creating this product. Do we want
this to be a standalone product or integrated with some of our existing
software. Additionally, are we working under any time or resource constraints.
<< Standalone app, no constraints but obviously the quicker the better >>
Financial product is also a fairly broad term and can mean anything from
account/taxes, investing etc. Is there a specific branch of finance you want
me to focus on? << Up to you and whatever you think is best >>
I will keep it general for now, when I’m looking at customer segmentation
and pain points, I may narrow the scope a little bit.
Business Objective and Why
Creating a financial product works really well for Microsoft because it’s
aligned with their mission of empowering individuals to achieve more.
Educating children about financial literacy would set them up for success in
the future if they are able to execute on it.
Additionally, I don’t believe Microsoft has any products that are targeted
towards the kids segment (maybe laptops but that’s getting into the teens).
Thus, this would be great to begin entering that market.
For an objective, I think we should focus on adoption of this product since it is
new. I will focus on making the features engaging but a current success
metric should be revolved around adoption.
Customer Segmentation I’d want to break down this customer segmentation by
age because I believe there are buckets of ages where your financial goals change.
I believe this is more effective than segmenting based on level of expertise
because with age we have the ability to tackle all levels of expertise, within those
certain age ranges. I’ll cap the age range at 18 because I want to focus on creating
a product that allows them learn before they are able to get a credit card or open
an investing account.
Tweenagers (Ages 10 - 14)
These students are in middle school, so they don’t have too much to
worry about besides school, extracurricular, and fun activities (gaming,
dancing etc.). They probably have little finances because they’re not the
legal age to work yet unless they receive allowance from their
parents/relatives. Their main goal at this stage would be retention of
education.
Teens (15 - 17)
These kids are entering high school or are already in high school. They
may or may not have a job and are going out a bit more to hang out with
friends individually. Their main objective would be education but also
applying some skills and getting ready to be set up for success as they
are about to turn 18.
Just to make it a little difficult on myself and interesting, I’d like to focus on the
Tweenagers segment since I have never created a product for that age group. I
think it also works well because if you create a strong foundation, they can
continually build on that as they grow older. Pain Points
Education → They are probably not interested in this topic at that age, making
it more difficult to teach them. Additionally, financial knowledge can get
complex pretty quickly so it may be above their skill level.
Application → Even if children do learn financial literacy skills, it’s hard to
actually apply them because they do not have the funds to do so or are put in
any situations where they have to apply their knowledge.
I would prioritize these based on the impact of the problem and the frequency it
occurs because a combination of the two criteria can give a well rounded idea of
which pain point to focus on.
Education is a fairly impactful problem because the hardest part is getting
children interested in financial knowledge in a way that sticks. I think it is
frequent too because a lot of students end up going into high school knowing
little about financial literacy. This is the pain point I would like to focus on.
Although application of financial knowledge is an important pain point, I think
it is less frequent because this pain point occurs after an individual has
learned some material and wants to apply it but can’t. Therefore, I will not be
pursuing this pain point for this interview. This could be something that is
integrated in a future version of the application.
Solutions Most of my solutions were around teaching children financial literacy in a
gamified way. After working with toddlers and kids I know that the best way for
them to learn is not a lecture/read style but usually in repetitive games that keep
them engaged and teach them too.
Duolingo Style Gamified App → Kind of how Duolingo teaches people all
around the world any language they want. A similar app where instead of
languages, each bucket is a different financial topic (Tax, Real Estate,
Investing). The types of games could be: Matching Vocabulary, Basic Math,
etc.
Interactive Simulation Game → Not sure if you are familiar with the game of
Clash of Clans but it’s basically a game where you a build a town with a town
hall, defense, collect resources and attack others. I think game like this can
be perfect to integrate some financial knowledge as well. For example, you
could add a bank that could allow you to take loans only if you pay interest
etc. You could add an investing feature which could be traded for gems or
something of that sort.
Chatbot Buddy Using NLP → Similar to the game Talking Tom, it could be a
buddy that you could ask questions to. It’s almost like having a virtual teacher
but could be powered with a lot of natural language processing.
I’d like to prioritize these solutions based on the impact they have on the problem
and the effort required to create it. .
I think the interactive simulation game would be the BEST possible way to go
about this problem. I think it perfectly solves the problem by making it into a
game that’s proven kids enjoy playing. You can slowly add new concepts with
different features in a subtle way and kids will be learning without even
knowing they are learning. I think the effort could be medium to high but
there are multiple games like this (Dragonvale, Farmville, Clash of Clans) that I
am sure it can be easy to replicate in another setting. The hardest part would
be adoption of the game but can be done through YouTubers and other
sponsors.
I think the chatbot buddy is low impact with medium effort. It requires a lot of
effort on the user side to help them stay engaged which at this stage, can be
very difficult as we previously discussed. The more I think about it, it seems
pretty similar to just a google search, just converted to a cartoon character.
I think the Duolingo style app is medium impact with med - high effort.
Duolingo is a really effective way to learn a language so I believe it can be
pivoted to learn financial literacy. However, with my personal experience (and
others), it still requires a lot of self-motivation to continually do a lesson
everyday. Additionally, I know Duolingo has worked for years on their lessons
and their spatial learning techniques to help individuals retain information and
it could be hard to replicate.
Success Metrics
# of users downloading this app → Shows if our marketing tactics are working
to get kids to download this app
Financial Proficiency → Maybe after they have been playing for a while and
get to the equivalent of town hall 8/9, we could give them a financial literacy
test through the app and incentivize it with a lot of gems or some resources
helpful in the game. We could set a benchmark as to what they should’ve
learned by now given their level and test to see if they actually understand it.
100. What would be the worst problems in the delivery experience after
buyer has placed the order?
Clarify: Are we specifically referring to the point in time after a customer places an
order to a restaurant, in the context of Doordash? Or are we talking about a generic
online order? (Assume former)
I am going to walk through what I think our business and product goal is, followed
by the users and their painpoints in the workflow after they place an order. Then I
will prioritize which pain points to solve for based on business objective and some
other factors, and finally brainstorm and prioritize some solutions/features to
address those pain points. Does that sound good?
Business Objective or Mission for Doordash - to connect consumers to local
businesses around them for ultimate convenience and empower small businesses
through logistics which unlocks their access to more consumers and financial
opportunity. My assumption is that since the company already has the max market
share in the food delivery segment and a steady revenue model with fees and
contracts, their north star goal to focus on will be user retention (over acquisition,
monetization, etc.) to maintain that edge.
Users - this is a two (or actually 3) sided marketplace - with consumers (buyers),
merchants (SMB owners) and 'dashers' or delivery personnel. For this particular
question, I will focus on the consumer and their experience right after they place
an order.
Painpoints - I am going to walk through the potential problems which can occur
after a consumer places an order, and divide them into 3 buckets:
User Actions
User made an error in the order they just placed and needs to correct it -
e.g. User ordered to the wrong address and needs to correct it, or didn't
add tip and now wants to, or User sees the ETA and decides they need to
cancel and order form another place, or User needs to change delivery to
pick up!
Operational issues
It takes a long time to get a confirmation of the order from the business
(say, restaurant)
Restaurant runs out of ingredients required to prepare the consumer's
order, so either cannot prepare that order or need to source ingredients,
adding to the ETA
Dashers are unavailable and therefore the ETA is a lot longer than approx.
ETA communicated before placing the order
Dasher unable to find the consumer's address and unable to get in touch
with the consumer
Dasher gets into an accident or trouble on the way to the consumer
adding to ETA and with no visibility for consumer or merchant
Dasher mixes up order with another while making the final delivery to
consumer
Technical issues
It takes a long time to get a confirmation of the order from the business
but due to technical issues (latency) in the app
App crashes right after order and does not re-open for some time
Now let's prioritize, based on 3 criteria - (A) Business Goals - which is to
seamlessly connect consumers to more local businesses and make it a convenient
experience, such that users continue to use their service. (B) Value to consumer,
such that we increase user retention (C) Complexity / effort to solve
I think I would focus on the following 2 problem-areas with some potential
solutions:
9. Consumers needing to make certain changes to their order right after placing
them
2. Solution: Allow changes for 5 minutes after an order is placed, after
which the restaurant gets pinged about the order.
3. Low-hanging and easy to implement and makes it a stress-free and
convenient experience
4. Metrics to track: # of orders with changes after submission, reduction in
# of customer complaints or requests for changes to orders
5. Tradeoffs/Pitfalls: Adds to the ETA which is the other metric consumers
care about
13. Dashers unavailable and therefore the ETA is a lot longer than approx. ETA
communicated before placing the order
2. Solution: This can be solved by improving our demand forecasting
algorithms. We could do this using machine learnings and train our
existing models with more granular data on expected demand in different
localities/businesses at different times of day and days of the week.
3. Medium to large effort but ETA is a key metric of success for the
company.
4. Metrics to track: Avg ETA, Week on week, Dasher utilization Rate
5. Trade-off/Pitfall: Even with an improved algorithm, we may need to scale
up dashers at some times of the day/week.
Why did I focus on these problems? I think these 2 would be needle movers for
consumers and would influence their decision on whether they would come back
to the Doordash app or not. While the technical issues are important, I don't think
they are the most critical or the long pole here to maintain customer trust and
retention. And the other problems - while bad - are harder to control for Doordash
(from a product perspective).

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Top 100 Product Sense Questions

5. How would you improve Instagram Stories?

7. Design a kayak rental service.

Ask Follow up Questions

8. Design a product for drivers driving in rush hour.

10. How would you improve Spotify?

Ask clarifying questions

Identify users, behaviors, and pain points

State product goal

Brainstorm small improvements

11. Design a fire alarm for the deaf.

15. Design a great gas station.

16. Design a refrigerator for the office

17. Design a LinkedIn for blue collar workers

18. How you would improve walmart.com?

How would you monetize messenger?

22. Design a stock trading product for Facebook.

24. Design a product to help people read more.

28. How would you improve Google News?

Clarification: Believe no constraints such as for specific market or for specific

29. How would you improve Gmail?

32. How would you improve YouTube for creators?

33. How would you build a product for movies on Facebook?

34. How many ads should Facebook Newsfeed display?

35. Build a new feature for natural disasters

37. How would you improve Google Assistant?

My Least Favorite Product: Amazon Kindle

42. Design a refrigerator for kids.

43. Re-design the airport experience.

44. How would you improve Uber?

Some follow-up questions to correctly understand what "improve" means here? Is

45. Design a smart shoe.

46. Design a photo app for the blind

48. Design a touchscreen table for a restaurant.

50. How would you reduce cancellation on Uber?

53. Design an ATM for kids

54. Design a high-tech gym.

55. How would you use VR to improve education?

56. Improve the experience of moving to a new city.

57. How would you improve Facebook Search?

59. How would you improve WhatsApp?

62. Design a parenting product.

63. Design a smart phone for blind people

64. Design a refrigerator for blind people.

69. How would you improve Slack?

72. How would you improve Facebook Events?

75. Design a product to tackle Facebook's fake news problem.

78. How would you improve Netflix?

Ask clarifying questions

Identify users, behaviors, and pain points

State product goal

Brainstorm small improvements

81. Design Lyft for kids.

85. Design a product for wine drinkers.

86. How would you monetize Spotify?

89. Redesign the city park experience.

90. Launch a new mode of transportation for Lyft.

92. Design an educational product for Facebook.

94. How would improve AirPods Pro?

98. Design an app to plan road trips.