Product design question
Google recently built a piece of equipment that detects information from human body. What kind of application would you build based on it? What type of information would you gather?
- Product design
- Hard
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What this question tests
Open-ended, ambiguous product design combined with ethical judgment: can you propose a scoped, responsible application for sensitive biometric-adjacent technology.
How to approach it
- Clarify the equipment's real capability first, since 'detects information from human body' is broad, and state an assumption (e.g. vital signs like heart rate/stress markers via non-invasive sensing).
- Identify a scoped, high-value use case: proactive health monitoring, e.g. early stress or irregular heart-rhythm detection for at-risk users.
- Address consent and privacy explicitly, since biometric data is extremely sensitive and misuse risk is high, especially for a company like Google with existing trust concerns.
- Propose the product: an opt-in wellness check feature (e.g. integrated with Fitbit/Pixel) that flags concerning patterns and recommends seeing a doctor, not a diagnostic tool.
- Limit data usage explicitly: on-device processing where possible, no ad-targeting use of this data, given the sensitivity.
- Define success: user-reported trust/comfort with the feature and, cautiously, early-detection cases that led to seeking care, without overclaiming medical impact.
What a strong answer includes
- States a clear assumption about what the sensing technology measures, given the vague prompt, rather than guessing wildly.
- Leads with privacy/consent as a first-class design constraint, appropriate for the sensitivity of biometric data and Google's trust context.
- Scopes the product as a wellness signal, not a medical diagnostic, avoiding regulatory and ethical overreach.
- Explicitly restricts data usage away from advertising, addressing the obvious trust concern a reasonable interviewer would expect.
Common mistakes
- Jumping to an ambitious diagnostic medical product without addressing regulatory and ethical constraints.
- Not addressing data privacy/consent at all, a major gap given the sensitivity of biometric data.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you handle liability if the feature missed a serious health issue?
- Would you build this as a Google product directly or partner with a healthcare company?
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