Making Lyft's ride-hailing experience work for drivers who are deaf
Company: Lyft
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager at Lyft. Design the Lyft experience for drivers who are deaf. Set a goal, decide which of their problems to solve first, propose and prioritize solutions, and explain how you would know they are working.
```hint Find where hearing is assumed
Follow one deaf driver through a shift, from going online to the last drop-off, and mark each moment where the app or a rider expects the driver to hear something or to speak.
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### Clarifying Questions
- Should the design also cover drivers who are hard of hearing, and should it assume drivers read written English, use sign language, or both?
- Is only the driver app in scope, or also what riders see and do when they are matched with a deaf driver?
- Is the aim to recruit more deaf drivers, to help current deaf drivers earn more, or to improve the trip for their riders?
- Are hardware additions, such as a dashboard light or a wearable, in scope, or only software?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A chosen goal and why it matters to Lyft, with a way to judge progress
- The driver's journey mapped, with pain points ranked against that goal
- A stated scope (driver app only, or riders too) and solutions that fit it
- Prioritization with explicit criteria, including each idea's effect on the driver's attention to the road
- Success metrics with guardrails, and the main risks, including road safety and the driver's privacy about being deaf
### Follow-up Questions
- Deaf drivers are a small share of all drivers. How would you measure the impact of your changes with confidence?
- Should riders be told before pickup that their driver is deaf? Who decides, and how would you notice riders cancelling because of it?
- Which of your ideas would you also give to hearing drivers, and why?
Overview: A Lyft product design case about adapting the ride-hailing experience for drivers who are deaf. It tests whether a candidate can set a goal, map a driver's shift to find where hearing is assumed, prioritize ideas that keep attention on the road, and measure success for a small user group.