Designing a Smartwatch App for Uber: A PM Candidate’s Guide
As a PM candidate for Uber, you may be presented with an imaginative prompt: “Design a smartwatch app.” This question assesses your ability to innovate within constraints, understand user context, and prioritize features for a specialized platform. This guide will help you approach this challenge using strategic frameworks to structure a purposeful answer.
Applying the Design Thinking Framework
We’ll utilize the Design Thinking framework, known for its user-centric approach to innovation. Break down your response into these actionable stages:
- Empathize: Consider smartwatch users’ needs. “They are often on the go, appreciate quick interactions, and value functionality that doesn’t require pulling out their phone.”
- Define: Clearly articulate user needs. “They need a streamlined way to book rides, receive updates, and manage their journey directly from their wrist.”
- Ideate: Propose various solutions. “We could create a simplified booking interface, implement voice commands, or offer haptic feedback for ride alerts.”
- Prototype: Discuss how you’d develop a minimum viable product (MVP). “I’d start by prototyping the essential feature – booking a ride – with large, easy-to-tap buttons and voice input options.”
- Test: Explain how you’d validate your design. “We’d conduct user testing with different demographics to ensure usability and gather feedback for iterative development.”
As a candidate, you wouldn’t be expected to design the app in real-time but show your capability to think through the product design process. Use approximations and assumptions grounded in logic when discussing potential reach and impact, e.g., “With smartwatch adoption rates increasing, we could potentially reach an additional 10% of our user base.”
Communicating Effectively During the Interview
As you walk through your app design, paint a clear picture for the interviewer. Use descriptive language, maintain a structured approach, and demonstrate enthusiasm for the product. If possible, reference relevant user insights or data from similar products to back up your decisions.
Conclusion
Designing a product under interview conditions can be daunting, but with the Design Thinking framework, you can deliver a calculated and creative approach to the challenge at hand. Emphasize your user-centric mindset, your understanding of the platform’s limitations, and your strategic prioritization of features. With ample preparation and an emphasis on structure and clarity, you’ll be able to communicate the depth of your product vision and impress your FAANG interviewers.