Building a Google Accessibility Feature for Users With No Sight
Company: Google
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
As a product manager at Google, design a feature in one of Google's products for people who are completely blind. Explain which product and which users you would focus on, what the feature does and how someone uses it without sight, and how you would judge whether it succeeds.
```hint Start from a blind user's day
List the moments in a day when someone who cannot see still needs another person's help, then ask which of those moments a Google product already touches.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Is the product mine to choose, or should the feature live in a specific Google product such as Search, Maps or Android?
- Does "completely blind" cover both people born blind and people who lost their sight later, and can I assume they already use a screen reader?
- What is Google's goal here: reaching people its products underserve, deeper use by blind users it already has, or the accessibility mission itself?
- Which devices should I design for: smartphones with a screen reader, basic feature phones, or new hardware?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A reasoned choice of product and of a blind user segment, recognizing how differently people blind from birth and people who lost sight later use technology.
- Pain points grounded in tasks where blind people still depend on sighted help, and why existing assistive tools fall short there.
- A feature designed end to end for audio and touch, compatible with screen readers, with a scoped first version and its trade-offs.
- Success metrics that capture independence and task completion without identifying users as disabled, plus accuracy and safety guardrails.
- Risks specific to blind users, such as relying on an imperfect feature at a safety-critical moment, and a plan to co-design and test with blind people.
### Follow-up Questions
- How would you run usability research when participants cannot see a prototype?
- The feature misleads a user once at a critical moment. How do you design for errors so that trust survives?
- How would you measure success if you cannot, or should not, know which users are blind?
Overview: A Google product design question that asks candidates to design a feature in a Google product for people who are completely blind. It tests segmenting blind users, finding tasks where they still depend on sighted help, designing for audio and touch instead of sight, and defining privacy-respecting success metrics and safety guardrails.