Product design question
Design a touchscreen table for restaurants
- Microsoft
- Product design
- Medium
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What this question tests
Tests hardware-adjacent product design for a shared, public-use device with real durability, hygiene, and multi-user interaction constraints.
How to approach it
- Identify the core use cases: browsing the menu and ordering, splitting a bill among a group, and light entertainment while waiting for food.
- Design for durability and hygiene: a scratch-resistant, easy-to-sanitize surface, and touch targets large enough to work reliably even with spills or grease on the screen.
- Design for multi-user interaction: split-screen zones so multiple diners can browse and order simultaneously without one person controlling the whole table's screen.
- Design the business model: partner with the restaurant on order-and-pay integration, reducing staff workload for taking orders and processing payment, which is the real value proposition to a restaurant operator.
- Define success: average order value lift (multi-user browsing/ordering tends to increase upsells) and reduction in average table turnover time, since both directly matter to the paying restaurant customer.
What a strong answer includes
- Designs specifically for the shared, public-use context, hygiene and durability, that a generic tablet interface answer would overlook.
- Recognizes the restaurant, not the diner, is often the actual paying customer, and designs the value proposition (reduced staff burden, higher order value) around them.
- Uses an illustrative number, e.g. assume multi-user tableside ordering increases average order value 10-15% through easier add-on upsells, based on known self-order kiosk trends.
- Picks business-relevant success metrics (order value, table turnover) that speak directly to why a restaurant would pay for this hardware.
Common mistakes
- Designing a generic touchscreen interface without addressing the shared-use hygiene and durability requirements specific to a restaurant setting.
- Ignoring that the restaurant operator, not the individual diner, is likely the actual paying customer whose needs must be centered.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you handle a table where some diners prefer not to use the touchscreen at all?
- How would you price this for restaurants, and what would justify the investment for them?
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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