Product design question
Walk us through the product design of either the Apple app store or Google Play.
- DoorDash
- 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.
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What this question tests
Product design applied to a familiar two sided marketplace, testing structured reasoning about discovery, trust, and monetization.
How to approach it
- Confirm which app to focus on, since scope should stay narrow, and note both share a similar core job.
- Identify users: developers publishing apps and end users discovering and installing them.
- Identify pain points: users struggle to trust app quality and safety before installing.
- Prioritize a trust and discovery improvement, such as clearer review signals and safety indicators.
- Propose a redesigned listing page emphasizing verified reviews and permission transparency.
- Define success with install to retain rate and reduction in post install uninstalls within a week.
What a strong answer includes
- Picks one app to focus on and states that choice clearly rather than answering vaguely about both.
- Targets trust and safety signaling, a known real pain point in app stores, with a specific fix.
- Sets a quality focused metric, week one retention after install, rather than just install count.
- Balances both sides of the marketplace: developers need fair discovery and users need trustworthy choices.
Common mistakes
- Redesigns the whole store with no focused problem to solve.
- Ignores the developer side of the marketplace entirely.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you balance featured placement fairness for smaller developers?
- How would you detect and handle fake reviews?
- How would this design differ between the Apple and Google ecosystems?
More product design questions
- How will you improve the worst customer experience post a successful order placement on Instacart?DoorDash · Product design · Medium
- How would you solve OpenTable's worst customer experience?DoorDash · Product design · Hard
- How would you design a loyalty program for DoorDash to increase customer retention?DoorDash · Product design · Medium
- Which app have you used for finding an apartment? How would you improve it?DoorDash · Product design · Easy
- How would you add a health option for DoorDash?DoorDash · Product design · Medium
- How would you improve DoorDash's post booking experience once the user has ordered their meal?DoorDash · Product design · Medium
More questions from DoorDash
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