Product Design: Accessible Grocery Retail for Customers Who Are Blind
Company: Google
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager asked to design a grocery store for customers who are blind. Describe what you would build: which shoppers you would serve first, where a typical grocery trip breaks down for them today, the store and supporting experience you would create, what you would ship first, and how you would measure whether it works.
```hint Walk the trip step by step
Follow one grocery run from making a list to unpacking at home, and mark each step that quietly depends on sight. The steps that depend on it most are the best place to start.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Should this be a new physical store, an approach existing grocery chains could adopt in their stores, an online grocery service, or a combination?
- Which shoppers are in scope: people with no usable sight, people with low vision, or both, and do they usually shop alone or with a companion?
- What outcome matters most: blind shoppers completing trips independently, a store that is commercially sustainable, or a model that other grocers can copy?
- Can the design assume shoppers carry a smartphone with a screen reader, or must every part work without one?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A clear goal and a reasoned choice of which blind and low-vision shoppers to serve first.
- Pain points mapped to each step of the grocery trip, from planning and getting there to paying and getting home.
- Concrete solutions that do not rely on sight and still work when a phone or connection fails.
- Prioritization of a first release, with success metrics and guardrails, including the experience of sighted shoppers and staff.
- Risks, trade-offs and how the design would be tested with blind shoppers.
### Follow-up Questions
- The pilot budget covers only one of your ideas. Which do you build first, and why?
- How would you help blind shoppers choose fresh produce, where quality is usually judged by looking?
- A large grocery chain wants to adopt your design in existing stores without rebuilding them. What do you keep and what do you drop?
Overview: A product design interview question asking a product manager to create a grocery store that works for blind shoppers. It tests choosing a user segment, mapping where the grocery trip depends on sight, designing non-visual solutions, prioritizing a first release and defining success metrics.