Product design: rethink a garage door and prioritize what to change
Company: Google
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are asked what you would change if you had to redesign a garage door. Decide what the redesign should achieve and for whom, find the problems worth solving, propose and prioritize changes, and explain how you would judge whether the redesign succeeded.
```hint Live with the door for a week
List every moment someone deals with the door over a normal week, including when nobody is home and when something goes wrong, and note where it frustrates or endangers them.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Who is making the change: a door manufacturer, an opener maker, or a company adding something to doors people already own?
- Is this a door for a house's attached garage, or should commercial and shared garages, such as apartment parking, be included?
- Is the physical door in scope, the opener and its controls, or both?
- Is there a target price point, and must the change fit doors that are already installed?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A stated objective and the context assumed for who is making the change
- The people who interact with a garage door compared, with one group chosen and the reason
- Pain points drawn from real moments with the door, ranked by frequency and severity
- Ideas compared on explicit criteria, including safety and security for a heavy moving door
- Success measures, guardrails and the main risks of the chosen changes
### Follow-up Questions
- How would you test your top change with real households before committing to manufacturing?
- Which change would you drop first if the retail price could barely rise, and why?
- How would your design differ for a shared garage in an apartment building?
Overview: A product design question that asks what you would change if you were redesigning a garage door. It tests clarifying the business context, choosing which users to design for, finding real pain points in everyday use, prioritizing ideas against cost, safety and security, and defining how success would be measured.