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.