Design a kid-safe navigation experience on Google Maps to acquire US users aged 9-14
Company: Flipkart
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager asked to design a version of Google Maps built for children. The interviewer fixes the scope: the users are 9 to 14 years old, the market is the United States, and the business goal is user acquisition, not revenue. Decide exactly who you are designing for, identify their problems, propose and prioritize features, and explain how you would measure whether the product brings in new users.
```hint Two users, one product
A 10-year-old rarely installs an app or creates an account alone. Think about who has to say yes before a child can use the product, and what each of them needs before they do.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Should this be a supervised mode inside the existing Google Maps app, or a separate app made for children?
- Which devices should we assume: the child's own phone, a smartwatch, or a parent's or school's tablet?
- Does acquisition mean new signed-in young Maps users, new families adopting the product, or both?
- Which trips matter most: walking or biking to school and activities, riding public transit, or exploring places with family?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A segment choice within the 9 to 14 range that reflects how differently younger and older children travel and how many have their own device, with parents treated as decision-makers.
- Pain points for both children and parents, including the tension between a parent's need for reassurance and a child's wish for privacy and independence.
- Features prioritized against the acquisition goal, a focused first version, and what is deliberately left out for child-safety reasons.
- An activation-based acquisition metric with guardrails for safety, privacy and early retention.
- Risks particular to building for US children, including privacy obligations for users under 13 and the danger of implying a route is guaranteed safe.
### Follow-up Questions
- A 13-year-old asks to turn off the location sharing a parent set up. How should the product respond?
- How would you acquire users in this age group without advertising to children?
- Your acquisition numbers look strong, but most new young users stop after the first week. What would you change?
Overview: A product design exercise that asks a product manager to build a Google Maps experience for children aged 9 to 14 in the US, where the goal is acquiring new users rather than revenue. It tests segmenting children and parents, balancing safety and privacy with independence, prioritizing features and defining acquisition metrics.