Instagram Product Sense: Choose a Goal and Segment, Then Design One New Feature

You are a product manager at Instagram. Propose one new feature that would make Instagram better, and make the case for it: what goal it serves, who it is for, how it would work, and how you would judge whether it succeeded. The improvement is for the Instagram mobile app; the web version is out of scope. ```hint Earn the feature Decide what "better" should mean for Instagram right now and which group of users you are improving it for before naming any feature. A feature that serves no stated goal is hard to defend against the interviewer's alternatives. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Should the feature aim at engagement, stronger connection between friends, creator retention, or revenue, or is choosing the goal part of the exercise? - Is one surface in focus, such as the feed, Reels, Stories, direct messages or shopping, or is the whole app in scope? - Which side of the platform should the feature serve: people who mostly watch, people who post for their friends, creators, or businesses? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - An explicit goal, justified by Instagram's mission and by its position against competing apps - A segmentation of Instagram's users and a defended choice of one segment - That segment's pain points, ranked, with a clear reason for the one addressed - Several candidate solutions compared on impact and effort, then one feature specified concretely enough to scope a first version - A success metric with guardrails, and Instagram-specific risks such as privacy, abuse, and cannibalizing other surfaces ### Follow-up Questions - How would you confirm the pain point is real before committing a team to the feature? - Your feature lifts activity in your chosen segment, but total Reels watch time falls. Do you ship it? - How would you design the experiment when the feature only works if a user's friends also have it?