Google Prompts: Product Design & Insights
Looking at a number of crowd-sourced lists of prompts, I found more than 150+ different prompts for product design & insights interviews. I was able to identify multiple types of prompts. They are listed here for you.
For a list of 15 variations, see the ‘Favorite Product’ prompts article. I also gatahered 15 samples of the phone screen prompts (a combination of product design & insights plus strategic insights and analytics).
Design From Scratch
Timely/Popular Problems (think Covid, WFH, etc.)
Design an app for people who are moving to a new city without seeing city first. (Coach’s Answer: Rent for 7 days)
Design next generation of TV service
Design a product to replace smartphone in 5~7 years
Build a feature for self-driving cars that addresses people’s inherent fear to purchase
Design a meditation app for kids.
What product will you design for companies that are moving towards permanent work-from-home model?
If you were the PM of Google, how would you design a home delivery system and grow it to Europe?
How would you improve remote learning?
Design an In-Store Experience for Shopping (Coach’s Answer: Rent for 7 days)
Design/Redesign a Car Wash (Coach’s Answer: Rent for 7 days)
Common Experience (more evergreen than timely)
Design an app for online shopping experience
Design a product to find a handyman.
Imagine you're the PM of a tutoring platform that already has basic features such as video/audio calling. You received feedback from customers that you need to improve content sharing on the platform. What would you build?
Travel
How would you improve an airport (pick one you are familiar with)?
How would you improve the air travelers experience?
Transportation
You are the PM of a ride-share app. What features would you create to prepare the company for autonomous vehicles?
How would you design a bicycle renting app for tourists?
Segmentation Gotchas (elderly, blind, kids, etc.)
Elderly
Design a phone for the elderly (65 plus)
Design a camera for elderly people
Design a mobile device for the elderly
Design a note taking app for the elderly.
Blind
Design a refrigerator for the blind
Design a new mobile phone for blind people
Design Google Glass for blind people.
Design an elevator for the visually impaired.
How would you improve Google Maps for the Blind?
Deaf
Design a product for the hearing impaired to help them improve their quality of life.
Disabled
You are a product manager at LinkedIn. Design a product for people with disabilities to find a good job
Kids
How would you design a web search engine for children below 14 years old?
Design a finanical app for kids?
Physical Objects
>>Straightforward
Design a better trash can (Coach’s Answer: Rent for 7 days)
Design a better elevator
>> Objects with a Twist (specific user)
How would you design a laundry machine for Jeff Bezos?
Design a bookshelf for kids
Digital Products
Google Products/Product Lines
How would you improve Google Maps?
How would you improve Google Photos?
You are a PM with Google Meets. What would you improve/build. How will you measure success? (notice analytics twist)
How would you improve Google Maps for logged in user?
How would you improve Google Maps? Consider many solutions to the problem.
You are the PM for the Google Hardware. Can you explore opportunities in the shower/bathroom area? ((Coach’s Answer: Rent for 7 days)
How would you redesign Google Home speaker?
How would you improve Gmail?
You are a new Product Manager at Google Pay. Design a feature for paying credit card bills.
Search
Design next generation of search (Google Search implied)
Searching for certain topics is often frustrating, e.g., parenting advice. Brainstorm some solutions for that.
Google Not Currently Doing (often not strategically aligned)
Design residential apartment for Google
Design a travel app for Google
As Google, how would you go about improving in-flight experience?
If you were the PM of Google, how would you design a home delivery system and grow it to Europe?
You are a PM for Google Search. Due to the increased inflation, Google wants to launch a feature that would help users to easily find promo codes. How would you build it?
Design OfferUp / CraigsList / Facebook Marketplace for kids.
New Product but Similar to Existing Non-Google Products
Design a question and answer website like Quora
Design an App for an Amusement Park
Design a product for Flight system to buy tickets
CEO/Founder - Big Ambigious Space
You're a founder, and have decided to start something in the travel space. What do you do?
You are CEO at startup in education space. What would you build?
Recommend a 10X idea to Sundar. (Could be strategy or design)
Physical Product
You're a PM at a vending machine company. Your CEO asks of you to design a new line of vending machines to be placed at Hotels/Motels. What would you do?
The CEO of a your company asks you to design a new ATM for their Airport segment. What do you do?
Going Against Space Google Is In
You are a startup with unlimited photos and you have a design a competitive product against Google Photos
Assume Google Books didn't exist, how would you design a product for Google Books.
You are a PM for a startup that has video conferencing technology. what would you do?
Oddly Random
How would you design a product that increases the consumption of fruit in the US?
Redesign a gas/patrol station.
How would you design an app for family tree with a fun social factor?
Known Company (not Google)
How will you improve Twitter?
You work at Yelp - how would you create a system that would provide good advice to users of new restaurants to try?
If you were to design a phone for Microsoft what would that look like
Design Facebook for Kids
How would you create a competitor for IMDB?
How would you go about personalizing a music streaming service like Spotify or YouTube music? (Can also be an analytics question if focused on algo)
How would you make Microsoft Teams more useful for people working offline?
Imagine X from Y
Imagine you have technology that can enable infinite bandwidth and near zero latency what will you do with it?
Random Tech (typically sensors involved)
Imagine we have come up with a mood api (or ring) which enables real-time access to anybody's mood. What should we do with it?
Google Nose. Find business opportunities for it.
You created a new technology* that allows you to collect every signal off of the human body - how would you use it? (come up with 5 use cases). Calculate the storage your prioritized solutution would need in the first month. (notice analytics twist)
You are a product manager at a start-up whose technology can detect emotions. Evaluate potential applications..
Given a mirror, a camera and internet connectivity make a product
If colonists had to live on Mars for 2 years, what everyday applications would they need and how would they modify the applications to accommodate for the 12 minute communication delay between Mars and Earth?
*It is common to follow up these sensor questions with analytics when users for phone screen or strategy but can also be a design question.
Strategy + Design
Typically it starts as a strategic question and moves into a design question. OR, to answer the strategy question, you have to think about the user and solve for them as part of answering the question.
Tell me about a technological trend is going on and what Google could do to follow this trend and provide a product related to this trend?
Large amount of americans might become homeless on the next 5 years. You have 100 days to come with a plan/solution to irradicate or aliviate the homeless situation on the US. Where do you start?
Would you launch a separate app for YouTube Music? (Y/N) If so, design the experience.
Assume self-driving cars are everywhere in 5 years, what product you will start working on now?
Could go either way, depends on interviewer.
Assume that in a major urban city, there is a section of interstate highway that is only available for self-driving cars. What are some potential business opportunities?
A question bank for Google Product Management Product Design & Insights Interviews: a list of Product Manager Interview questions asked at Google.
