Accessibility product sense: serving people with hearing loss, from segment to metrics

In a product manager interview at Google, you are asked to design a product that makes everyday life better for people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Decide exactly who the product is for, work out which of their problems matter most, propose the product and what its first version includes, and explain how you would know it is helping. ```hint Narrow the population first Hearing loss covers people born deaf who communicate in sign language, adults who lost their hearing later in life, and older adults with mild loss, and each group struggles in different moments. Pick one group and the situations where relying on sound fails them most, then design for those. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Which group should the product serve first: people who have been deaf since birth and use sign language, adults who lost their hearing later in life, or older adults with mild to moderate age-related loss? - Should the product build on Google's existing devices and services (Android phones, Pixel Watch and Fitbit wearables, Nest home devices), or can it be new standalone hardware? - Which part of life matters most here: safety and independence at home, conversations with hearing people, or access to media and public information? - Is this meant to be a free accessibility feature that strengthens Google's platforms, or a product expected to earn revenue on its own? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A segmentation by degree of hearing loss, when it began and how the person communicates, ending in a reasoned choice of one group. - Pain points across settings (sounds at home and outside, conversations, phone calls, announcements and media), ranked by how often they occur and how costly a miss is. - A focused first version that explains why Google is well placed to build it and accounts for the captioning and sound-alert tools that already exist. - Success metrics with guardrails on false alerts, missed critical sounds and privacy. - Risks specific to this group: reliance on the product for safety, microphones in the home, cost, and designing with deaf and hard-of-hearing users rather than for them. ### Follow-up Questions - Suppose your product alerts users to sounds and one night it misses a smoke alarm. How should it have been positioned and designed so that this is unlikely and users never believe they are covered when they are not? - How would you run research and usability testing with people whose first language is a sign language? - How would your product serve someone who lost their hearing at sixty differently from someone who has been deaf since birth?