Design: Greenfield vs Optimization Prompts

Product Sense or Product Design interview prompts typically fall into two large buckets: Design vs Improve.

Think:

• Design an app to find doctors

• Improve Spotify

Both prompt types are difficult, but for different reasons. The ‘design’ prompt throws people off because they don’t know how to narrow down and thus where to start or how big to think.

The ‘improve’ prompt throws people off because they feel confined to the existing space or fear they are just not creative enough. Many candidates just list things already in existence and so fall flat on the creativity requirements.

This article is going to focus on types for the improve questions, for the design questions, check out my thoughts on thinking big here, here, here, here and here.

Common Fears with Optimization Prompts

• The interviewer knows more than I do about the product, so it is harder to innovate

• I have never used the product before

• Fewer freedoms because I have to design within the next 3 to 6 months in the known platform

Tackling These Fears

• Nothing you can do about the interviewer knowing more; explain your thought process around the user problem you are seeking to solve. This shows you are reasonable and logical.

• If you don’t know the product:

  • Get on the same page on what the product does

  • Try to anchor on a similar product you do know

• Part of why interviewers ask you to improve existing products is this is closer to the reality of your job. Don’t try to develop a space robot, be practical. Try two ideas that leverage existing product features from elsewhere in the ecosystem and then come up with one new idea to show out-of-the-box thinking if you can.

• Generally practicing a lot means you can reuse ideas from practice prompts.