Product design question
You are a Product Manager at Uber. Design a smartwatch app.
- Microsoft
- Product design
- Medium
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What this question tests
Product design for a companion device use case, prioritizing glanceable, low friction interactions suited to a small screen.
How to approach it
- Define the target user, Uber riders and drivers wanting quick actions without pulling out their phone.
- Identify the core use cases suited to a smartwatch, like requesting a ride, checking driver ETA, and receiving arrival notifications.
- Prioritize glanceable, low interaction design, since smartwatch screens demand simplicity over the full phone app's feature set.
- Address a key constraint, limited input methods, favoring voice or single tap actions over complex forms.
- Define a success metric, such as adoption rate among existing Uber app users who own a compatible smartwatch.
What a strong answer includes
- Scopes the app to a few high value, glanceable actions instead of replicating the full phone app on a small screen.
- Explicitly designs around the smartwatch's input constraints, favoring voice and single tap over typing or scrolling.
- Names a realistic adoption metric tied to the actual smartwatch owning subset of Uber's user base.
Common mistakes
- Trying to replicate the entire phone app experience on a smartwatch, ignoring its screen and input limitations.
- Ignoring that ride requests need destination input, which is hard on a small screen without voice support.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you handle destination input given the smartwatch's limited screen?
- How would you measure whether this reduces phone dependency during a ride?
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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