Product design question
Design Pinterest for male users.
- Product design
- Medium
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What this question tests
Tests product design for expanding a platform into an underrepresented user segment: understanding why the current product underperforms for that segment before redesigning.
How to approach it
- Diagnose why male users engage less today: Pinterest's discovery and content mix historically skews toward categories (fashion, home decor, recipes) that index female, so relevance is the likely core issue, not the interface.
- Identify male-skewing use cases already present in search behavior, such as DIY, fitness, cars, tech setups, or outdoor gear, that are underrepresented in the default discovery experience.
- Prioritize the core problem: improving content relevance and discovery for male-skewing interests, rather than assuming the product mechanics themselves need to change.
- Propose the solution: improve onboarding to better capture male-skewing interest signals early, and adjust the home feed algorithm to surface more relevant boards and pins based on those signals.
- Avoid a superficial fix: simply changing visual branding or adding a 'for men' section risks feeling gimmicky and alienating rather than addressing real content relevance.
- Define success: session frequency and pin-saving behavior among male users, compared against a control group, after the improved onboarding and relevance changes.
What a strong answer includes
- Diagnoses the root cause as content relevance and discovery, not interface design, avoiding the common mistake of assuming male users need a fundamentally different product.
- Grounds male-skewing interests in real, known categories (DIY, fitness, tech, cars) rather than stereotyping or guessing.
- Explicitly rejects a superficial 'for men' section as the fix, recognizing that would likely feel gimmicky rather than solve the underlying relevance gap.
- Proposes a measurable test (session frequency and saves versus a control group) to validate the relevance hypothesis before a broader rollout.
Common mistakes
- Assuming the fix is cosmetic (different colors, a 'for men' label) instead of addressing content relevance and discovery.
- Stereotyping male interests without grounding them in actual observed search or engagement behavior.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you avoid alienating existing users while adjusting the discovery algorithm for a new segment?
- How would you validate the relevance hypothesis before committing to an algorithm change?
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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