Product design question
Design a fridge for an office.
- Asana
- Product design
- Medium
Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.
Start a mock interview on this question · Mock interview from a job description
What this question tests
Product design for a shared, low-tech physical space with social and logistical dynamics, matching solution to scale.
How to approach it
- Clarify: a shared office fridge used by many employees with common issues, spoiled food, mislabeled or missing items, and overcrowding.
- Identify users: individual employees storing lunch, and facilities managing cleanliness and capacity.
- Surface pain points: items going missing or expiring silently, overcrowding, and unclear ownership.
- Prioritize the labeling and expiry problem, since it drives the most common complaint, smelly cleanouts and wasted space.
- Propose a lightweight solution: simple color-coded day tags paired with a clearly communicated scheduled cleanout policy, not an over-engineered smart fridge.
- Define success as reduced facilities complaints and cleanout time, and higher employee satisfaction with shared kitchen space.
What a strong answer includes
- Keeps the solution proportionate to the problem, a low-tech labeling and policy fix, showing good judgment on scope.
- Names the real, relatable pain points, spoiled food and missing lunches, rather than generic 'make it bigger.'
- Ties the fix to a measurable facilities outcome, cleanout time and complaints.
Common mistakes
- Over-engineering with unnecessary smart-fridge technology for a low-stakes shared-space problem.
- Ignoring the social and behavioral dimension, people not following norms, and only proposing hardware fixes.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you get employees to actually follow the labeling system?
- What would you do about persistent food theft?
More product design questions
- Design a fridge for kids.Asana · Product design · Easy
- How would design an Uber for laundry?Google · Product design · Medium
- Design a refrigerator for offices.Google · Product design · Medium
- How would you improve Outlook for the use case when people get overwhelmed by number of emails received after returning from a vacation?Microsoft · Product design · Medium
- You’ve just joined Meta and have been tasked with launching a new product to help people at home during emergencies. What would you build?Meta · Product design · Medium
- How do you design a camera for the elderly?Google · Product design · Medium
More questions from Asana
Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 7: AI UX and human oversight: design for a system that is wrong sometimes
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop