Open-ended product design: an airport concept for tomorrow's flying public
Company: Zolo
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager asked to design an airport with the new generation in mind. The interviewer gives no further detail and invites you to make your own assumptions, so begin by deciding what "the new generation" refers to and what kind of airport you are designing. Then choose whose needs to serve first, propose and prioritize what the airport should offer, and explain how you would tell whether the design works.
```hint Make your reading concrete
Before proposing anything, spell out what sets the people you have in mind apart (how they plan trips, pay, pack, work and pass waiting time), then walk one of them from leaving home to boarding and mark where a conventional airport clashes with those habits.
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### Clarifying Questions
- Does "the new generation" mean a group of travelers, such as people now in their teens and twenties, or the airport of the coming decades, and should the design serve that group alone or everyone with that group in mind?
- Am I designing a new airport from the ground up or reworking an existing one, and from whose seat: the airport operator, a government planning body or an airline?
- Is the scope the physical terminal, the digital journey around it (getting there, wayfinding, live updates), or both?
- What size and traffic mix should I assume: a major international hub or a regional airport serving mostly domestic flights?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A stated interpretation of "the new generation" and of the airport's scope and owner, with the reason for each choice
- A goal tied to how an airport earns money and competes for airlines and passengers, not only to traveler delight
- Segments within the chosen audience compared, one chosen, and its journey through the airport with ranked pain points
- Ideas prioritized on impact, cost and reliance on parties the airport does not control, with attention to which choices are fixed once the building exists
- A primary success metric with guardrails, plus the main risks and how to reduce them
### Follow-up Questions
- How would the same terminal still work well for older travelers, families and travelers with disabilities?
- Which of your ideas depend on airlines or the government security agency, and how would you get them to agree?
- A terminal lasts for decades: how would you keep your design from dating as travelers' habits change?
Overview: A product design exercise in which the candidate shapes an airport for the new generation and is free to set their own assumptions. It tests how they interpret an open brief, pick a segment, map the door-to-gate journey, weigh ideas against cost and partner dependencies, and define success metrics with guardrails.