Product design question
You are the GM of Disneyland. You want to lower the length of the waiting lines. What do you do?
- Stripe
- Product design
- Medium
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What this question tests
Product and operations thinking: reducing a real-world queuing problem using both product and operational levers.
How to approach it
- Clarify which lines: ride queues specifically, and pick one or two flagship rides to focus the answer.
- Diagnose root causes: uneven ride capacity, guests bunching at popular rides, and no visibility into wait times.
- Propose product levers, like a virtual queue or FastPass-style reservation system, and real-time wait-time display in the app.
- Propose operational levers, like dynamic staffing or time-based ticketing to spread arrivals throughout the day.
- Define success as average wait time reduced and guest satisfaction scores improved.
What a strong answer includes
- Combines product (virtual queue app feature) and operations (staffing, ticketing) rather than a single narrow fix.
- Names a concrete mechanism, like a paid or free FastPass system, similar to Disney's real Genie+ product.
- Uses an assumed target, e.g. cutting average wait from 60 to 40 minutes for top rides.
- Considers guest fairness, ensuring the solution doesn't just favor guests who pay more.
Common mistakes
- Proposing only a technical fix and ignoring operational levers like staffing.
- Ignoring fairness concerns if a paid skip-the-line option is introduced.
- Not defining any way to measure whether wait times actually improved.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you balance a paid FastPass option with fairness for all guests?
- How would you measure guest satisfaction beyond wait time?
- What would you do if a virtual queue increases wait time for popular rides?
More product design questions
- How would you improve the Uber app?Lyft · Product design · Easy
- For a retail store, users are frequently complaining about long queues during check out. What strategy would you use to improve the experience in the short term and long term?Shopify · Product design · Medium
- How would you re-design the carwash?Spotify · Product design · Medium
- You're a PM at a vending machine company. Your CEO asks you to design a new line of vending machines to be placed in hotels and motels. What would you do?Google · Product design · Hard
- How would you design an app to help people choose which cheese to buy at a grocery store?Stripe · Product design · Easy
- What is your favorite product? Why?PayPal · Product design · Easy
More questions from Stripe
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