Google Maps Phone MVP Limited to One Zoom Level: Pick the Map Scale and Justify It

You are the product manager for the Google Maps app on mobile phones. Treat it as a first-of-its-kind product: nothing like it exists yet, so there are no competitors to learn from or benchmark against. While you plan the MVP, your tech lead explains that engineering constraints make it impossible to support more than one zoom level for viewing maps on the phone, and asks you to choose that level. Which zoom level would you pick, and why? ```hint Let the job pick the scale Every fixed scale serves some trips well and others badly. Decide which moment of use the MVP must win, then ask what a person needs to see on a small screen in that moment. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Can people still drag the map around at the chosen level, and does the phone know the user's current location? - Does the MVP include place search and directions, or only map viewing? - Who is the launch user: drivers, people on foot, or people looking for somewhere to go nearby, and do they live mostly in dense cities or in spread-out suburbs and rural areas? - Should the answer be described by what fits on one screen (a building, a few blocks, a neighborhood, a whole city), or does the team expect a number on a standard zoom scale? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Probing the engineering constraint once (what exactly is impossible, and why) before accepting it and committing to an answer. - A deliberate choice of primary user and use case, with a reason it matters most for a first mobile map whose real alternative is a paper map or printed directions. - A comparison of candidate scales against the main use cases, framed by what stays legible on a phone screen: street names, landmarks, how much ground one screen covers. - One concrete answer, plus product features that make up for what that scale does poorly, such as text directions or a results list. - How the choice would be tested with users before launch and which metrics would show it was right afterward. ### Follow-up Questions - Launch data shows most sessions come from drivers on highways rather than people on foot. Would you change the level, and how would you make the case to engineering? - Engineering later says it can afford exactly one more zoom level. Which would you add, and why that one? - How would your answer change for a market where most users live in rural areas with sparse roads?