Product design question

Design a dating feature for Instagram.

Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.

What this question tests

Product design judgment on a sensitive social feature, checking you can balance user desire with safety and brand risk.

Clarify scope, whether this is a standalone dating experience or a lightweight discovery layer within Instagram, and confirm target age group given safety implications.
Identify the target user, adults seeking connections through shared interests already visible via Instagram content, distinct from existing swipe-based apps.
List pain points with existing dating apps: superficial swiping, catfishing risk, and repetitive profile setup disconnected from real interests.
Propose the design: an opt-in feature that surfaces potential matches based on shared interests inferred from public content, with strict verification and clear separation from a user's main profile.
Prioritize safety and consent mechanisms first, such as mandatory age verification and default-off visibility, given Meta's history of scrutiny on user safety.
Define success as opt-in rate and reported safety incidents kept below a threshold, confirming that a low but sustained engagement is acceptable given trust risk.

Leads with safety and trust design, mandatory verification and opt-in defaults, before feature mechanics, given the sensitivity of dating on a platform with minors present.
Differentiates from existing dating apps by leveraging shared interest signals from real content rather than a fresh swipe deck, playing to Instagram's actual data advantage.
Proposes a clear separation between dating profile and main Instagram identity to reduce social risk for users.
Sets a guardrail metric explicitly, capping acceptable safety incident rates, showing trust is treated as a hard constraint, not just an engagement optimization.

Designing a feature without addressing safety, verification, or age-appropriate access controls.
Ignoring differentiation from existing dating apps like Tinder or Hinge.
Treating this as low-risk when in reality dating features carry significant brand and safety exposure for a platform like Instagram.

How would you prevent this feature from being used by minors?
How would you differentiate this from existing dedicated dating apps to justify building it?