Product design question
Imagine you are the Product Manager of YouTube Shorts. What improvements would you make?
- Flipkart
- Product design
- Medium
Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.
Start a mock interview on this question · Mock interview from a job description
What this question tests
Tests product sense on a fast-growing, competitively pressured product: picking one focused improvement instead of a broad wishlist.
How to approach it
- Clarify scope: creator tools, viewer discovery, or monetization; default to viewer discovery and retention since that drives the flywheel.
- Segment viewers: casual scrollers versus subscribers actively following specific Shorts creators.
- Pick one pain point: it's hard to find more from a creator right after a Short ends, since the feed jumps to an unrelated video.
- Propose a More from this creator swipe-up prompt after a Short ends, without breaking the vertical scroll momentum.
- Address the trade-off: any added friction risks reducing watch time, so keep the prompt optional and one-swipe dismissible.
- Define success: creator-to-creator session depth per user, and subscription conversion rate from the prompt.
What a strong answer includes
- Picks one specific, common discovery gap instead of listing generic ideas like better recommendations.
- Names the real tension with YouTube's scroll-momentum model and designs the fix to respect it.
- Proposes a dismissible, low-friction UI element rather than a disruptive redesign.
- Defines success with both a depth metric and a monetization-adjacent metric, subscriptions.
Common mistakes
- Suggesting a full feed redesign without acknowledging the risk to overall watch time.
- Listing shallow feature ideas without committing to and defending one.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you A/B test this without hurting session length?
- How would this differ for creators posting the same content cross-platform?
More product design questions
- How would you go about designing a new location sharing app for Google?Google · Product design · Medium
- You are a PM at Flipkart. The company has decided to increase the userbase of age >60 years on the platform. What will you do?Flipkart · Product design · Hard
- How would you improve YouTube?Spotify · Product design · Easy
- How would you improve Google Drive?Google · Product design · Easy
- How would you design a consumer application for a scooter sharing business?Google · Product design · Medium
- How would you increase retention for Oyo Rooms?Flipkart · Product design · Medium
More questions from Flipkart
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