Product design question
Design a way for people to find apartments.
Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.
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What this question tests
Whether the candidate can scope a broad product prompt into a specific user, pain point, and MVP rather than designing a generic listings site.
How to approach it
- Pick a specific segment, for example renters relocating for a new job with limited time to visit in person.
- Name the core pain point: uncertainty about a neighborhood's fit and difficulty trusting listing photos versus reality.
- Prioritize the highest-impact fix: verified, recent photos or short video walkthroughs, and neighborhood context (commute time, noise, safety) alongside listings.
- Propose a focused MVP: search filtered by commute time to a workplace address plus verified listings, rather than a full marketplace.
- Define success as time to a confirmed booking and reduction in post-move-in complaints about mismatched listings.
What a strong answer includes
- Chooses relocating renters as a segment with an underserved, specific pain point, rather than 'anyone looking for an apartment'.
- Proposes commute-time search as a concrete differentiator, tying it to a real behavioral driver of apartment choice.
- Defines success with a behavioral metric, time to booking, not just search volume.
Common mistakes
- Designing a broad, generic listings clone without a specific angle or user.
- Focusing only on search features while ignoring trust in listing accuracy.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you verify listing accuracy without inspecting every unit yourself?
- What would you cut to ship an MVP in six weeks?
More product design questions
- Design a TV for a car.Google · Product design · Hard
- Design a refrigerator for the blind.Google · Product design · Hard
- How do you design a camera for the elderly?Google · Product design · Medium
- Redesign Twitter for eCommerce.Shopify · Product design · Hard
- How would you go about designing a new location sharing app for Google?Google · Product design · Medium
- How would you improve Google Home?Google · Product design · Easy
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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