The product design query is a typical and demanding facet of product administration interviews. It checks a candidate’s skill to grasp customers, prioritize issues, assume creatively, and show structured considering (HelloPM, 2023).
On this article, I’ll discover efficient methods to nail the product design query, and it’ll equip aspiring product managers with the mandatory instruments to excel of their interviews.
In a product design query, interviewers current a hypothetical situation the place candidates are required to design or enhance a product. The purpose is to judge a candidate’s expertise in understanding consumer wants, prioritization, consequence orientation, structured considering, and creativity (Exponent, 2023). Widespread examples of product design questions embody bettering an present product, designing a product for a particular consumer group, or envisioning a product for a brand new market.
Examples of product design questions:
- How would you enhance X product?
- Share a product you admire and suggest potential enhancements to reinforce its performance.
- In the event you had been tasked with creating an alarm clock appropriate for people with visible impairments, how would you method its design?
- Envision the product that Airbnb may supply when venturing into the camper van trade trade.
- Create a product that promotes larger productiveness at work for freelancers.
- Stroll me by means of a product design instance the place you got down to clear up a enterprise downside. (Toptal)
1) Make clear your understanding of objectives and outline scope:
Earlier than diving into answering the query, it’s essential to make clear the objectives and scope of the issue. Search clarification from the interviewer to grasp the context and constraints. Understanding these features will assist information your thought course of and guarantee you might be addressing the precise challenges (ProductHQ, 2023). A technique to do that is to rephrase the query in your individual phrases and ask the interviewer to substantiate that you simply perceive it appropriately.
2) Articulate potential consumer personas and their wants:
To design a profitable product, you should determine the completely different consumer personas who may work together with it. Think about their traits, behaviours, and ache factors. This step allows you to empathize with customers and acquire a deeper understanding of their wants. Clearly articulate the consumer personas and their particular necessities throughout your reply. To make sure that you’re designing a product that meets the wants of a particular consumer persona, it is very important ask the interviewer clarifying questions. For instance, if you’re requested to design an alarm clock for the blind, you’ll wish to know if the consumer has every other impairments, akin to listening to loss. This data would assist you to to design a product that’s really user-centric and meets the wants of the precise consumer persona. (Gupta, 2020).
3) Prioritize crucial issues:
With a transparent understanding of consumer wants, decide the important issues confronted by the customers. Assess the impression of those issues on the consumer expertise and prioritize them primarily based on severity. Think about the present options obtainable and consider their effectiveness in addressing these issues. It is very important show your skill to determine issues and prioritize them primarily based on their urgency. This may be executed by explaining how you’ll assess the impression of the issues on the consumer expertise and take into account the present options obtainable. You also needs to be capable of clarify why you’ll handle one downside earlier than one other, ideally by aligning your method with the corporate’s objectives and imaginative and prescient (Kemp, 2017).
4) Brainstorm a number of options:
Upon getting recognized the issues, it’s time to generate a variety of potential options. Encourage creativity and discover completely different approaches to fixing the prioritized issues. Assume past apparent options and take into account progressive concepts that might present a singular worth proposition. That is your probability to show your inventive problem-solving expertise and assume exterior the field (UXdesign, 2019). This can be a nice alternative to indicate the interviewer that you’re a helpful asset to their workforce.
5) Prioritize the options:
With a listing of potential options, it’s important to prioritize them. To guage and rank the proposed options, you may frameworks akin to
- MOSCOW (Should-Have, Ought to-Have, Might-Have, Received’t-Have)
- KANO (Engaging, One-Dimensional, Should-Be, Detached)
- RICE (Attain, Affect, Confidence, Effort)
Think about elements akin to feasibility, impression on consumer expertise, alignment with enterprise objectives, and potential dangers.
If you’re in search of a easy prioritization framework, you need to use an impression vs. effort matrix. This matrix plots the impression of an answer in opposition to the trouble required to implement it. The impression is the worth that the answer will ship to each the top consumer and the corporate. The hassle is the period of time and assets that might be required to implement the answer. (ProductPlan, 2023).
6) Outline success metrics for the proposed answer:
For every prioritized answer, determine the important thing efficiency indicators (KPIs) that may measure its success. These metrics ought to align with the objectives and targets outlined earlier. Examples of success metrics embody consumer engagement, conversion charges, buyer satisfaction scores, and income progress. Clearly articulate the KPIs and the way they are going to be measured to show a result-oriented mindset.
The very best method to defining success metrics is to obviously state what success means in your product or characteristic, after which present particular, measurable objectives. For instance, if you’re launching a brand new courting app, you may outline success as having at the least two conversations began per consumer inside the first three days of utilization. This is able to provide you with a transparent strategy to measure the success of your app and decide whether or not it’s assembly your expectations. (Supermetrics, 2022).
7) Summarize your advice:
Current your remaining alternative of answer and supply a concise abstract of the way it addresses consumer wants and achieves the specified outcomes. Clearly articulate why this answer is the best primarily based on the prioritization and success metrics. Assist your advice with logical reasoning and a transparent product imaginative and prescient. That is your probability to showcase your communication and synthesis expertise by offering a transparent and concise abstract of your findings. It will present the interviewer that you’ll be able to talk advanced concepts clearly and successfully (Himalayas.app, 2023) .
Finally there are a number of important features of nailing the product design query:
- Ask clarifying questions: Search clarification from the interviewer to completely perceive the issue, objectives, and constraints.
- Exhibit user-centric considering: Emphasize the significance of understanding consumer wants and designing options that handle their ache factors successfully.
- Showcase structured considering: Use frameworks, prioritize successfully, and supply logical reasoning to show a structured method to problem-solving.
- Assume creatively: Generate progressive concepts and discover unconventional options that differentiate your method.
- Steadiness trade-offs: Think about the feasibility, impression, and dangers related to every answer and make knowledgeable selections.
