Product critique: pick a product that frustrates you and diagnose where it fails
Company: Nike
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
Name a product you dislike using, and explain why it sits at the bottom of your list.
```hint Find the moment it breaks
Anchor the answer in the specific step where the product lets a particular kind of user down, then ask why the people who built it might have ended up there.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Should it be a product I use regularly, or can it be one I tried and abandoned?
- Can it be a physical product, or should it be a digital one?
- Would you like me to stop at the diagnosis, or also say what I would change?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- Who the product is for and what job it is supposed to do, so the critique has a yardstick.
- Specific moments where it fails that user, ordered by how much they matter, rather than a general complaint.
- A credible view of why it is built this way: the constraints, incentives or trade-offs its makers face.
- A constructive, professional tone that ends on what would have to change for the product to win you over.
### Follow-up Questions
- If you became its product manager tomorrow, which problem would you fix first, and how would you know the fix worked?
- Who is happy with the product as it is, and how would your fix affect them?
- Is there a competitor that already solves the problem you described, and why hasn't it won?
Overview: A product critique prompt that asks the candidate to name a product they dislike and explain why. It tests whether they can pinpoint where the product fails a specific user, reason about the constraints and incentives that likely produced the flaw, and stay constructive about what would need to change.