Product design question
Will you launch a separate app for YouTube Music? If so, design the experience.
- Product design
- Hard
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
Strategic product decision-making, weighing a standalone app against integration, followed by concrete design work.
How to approach it
- State a clear position, likely integrate music deeply within the existing YouTube app rather than fragment attention across a separate app, and justify it.
- Justify with reasoning, YouTube Music already exists as a separate product, so a third music surface risks confusing users and splitting engagement.
- If choosing integration, design the experience, a persistent mini-player, easy access to music videos and playlists from the main YouTube surface.
- Address the tension, video-first YouTube users and audio-first music listeners have different needs, so the experience must adapt to intent.
- Propose a mechanism, an audio-only background play mode and smart playlist continuation based on what a user is already watching.
- Define success metrics, music session length within the main app and background play adoption rate.
What a strong answer includes
- Takes a clear position and justifies it with reasoning about user confusion and engagement fragmentation, rather than dodging the yes or no question.
- Recognizes that YouTube Music already exists, making a third separate app a real strategic risk worth naming explicitly.
- Designs a concrete feature addressing the core tension, background audio play for video-first users who want music mode.
- Sets a specific metric, background play adoption, tied directly to the proposed design decision.
Common mistakes
- Avoiding a clear decision and only listing pros and cons with no recommendation.
- Ignoring that YouTube Music already exists as a separate product, making a new app redundant.
- Not designing a concrete experience once a decision is made.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you avoid cannibalizing the existing YouTube Music app.
- What would change your recommendation.
- How would you measure whether this integration is successful.
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
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