Product design question
How would you redesign a TV remote?
- Product design
- Easy
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
Basic product sense: spotting real usability friction in a familiar physical product and prioritizing fixes.
How to approach it
- Clarify scope: a universal remote or specifically a smart TV remote like Google TV's.
- List pain points: too many buttons, hard to find in the dark, voice search errors, lost remotes.
- Segment users: casual viewers who just want power and volume versus power users who juggle many apps.
- Prioritize the top complaint, likely losing the remote or button overload.
- Propose a minimal button layout, backlit keys, voice first navigation, and a phone finder chirp feature.
- Define success as fewer support calls about lost remotes and faster time to start watching.
What a strong answer includes
- Cuts the remote to under 10 buttons and pushes app navigation to voice and on screen menus.
- Adds a find my remote Bluetooth chirp, since lost remotes are a top complaint in TV reviews.
- Gives an illustrative number, for example assuming 20 percent of support contacts are remote related.
- Considers accessibility, like tactile bumps on key buttons for low vision users.
Common mistakes
- Redesigning for aesthetics only without citing a real usability problem.
- Removing physical buttons entirely and assuming voice always works, ignoring noisy rooms or accents.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you test whether fewer buttons actually improves usability?
- What would you keep as a physical button versus move to voice control?
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- 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
More questions from Google
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