Designing a Restaurant Dining Table With a Built-In Touch Display for Guests and Staff
Company: Microsoft
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are the product manager asked to design a table for restaurants whose entire top is a touchscreen: diners sit around it, and the surface can display content and respond to touch. Decide who the product is for, what it should do, and what belongs in the first version.
```hint Everyone around it, everything on it
Several kinds of people deal with this table, and not all of them are the ones paying for it. The surface also has to share space with plates, glasses and elbows for the whole meal.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- What kind of restaurant is the target: quick-service, casual full-service, or fine dining?
- Is the customer the restaurant owner who buys or leases the tables, and should diners be able to use it without help from staff?
- Are we building the hardware, the software, or both, and must the table connect to the restaurant's existing ordering, kitchen and payment systems?
- Which market comes first, and does the restaurant still need to serve diners who would rather not use a screen?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- Mapping the different users (restaurant owner, diners, servers, kitchen) and choosing whose problem the first version solves.
- Pain points across the dining journey, from sitting down to paying and leaving, tied to specific features.
- The physical realities of a dining surface: spills, heat, cleaning, plates covering the screen, and several people touching it from different sides.
- A clear reason to buy a touchscreen table instead of cheaper options such as tablets or phone-scanned menus, and a prioritized first version.
- Success metrics for both the restaurant and the diner, with guardrails.
### Follow-up Questions
- A restaurant owner says menu QR codes already let guests order from their own phones for almost nothing. How do you respond?
- How should the table handle a party of six who each want to order and pay separately?
- Would you show ads on the table during the meal? How would you decide?
Overview: A product design question about a restaurant dining table whose surface is a touchscreen. It tests identifying the buyer and the users, mapping pain points across the dining journey, handling the physical realities of a food surface, prioritizing a first version against cheaper alternatives, and defining success metrics with guardrails.