Design Food Delivery App for Senior Citizen| PM Interview | Product Design.

You are the product manager at Swiggy and asked to build Swiggy for senior citizens.

Product management interviews often include product design questions, which test a candidate’s ability to approach complex problems with creativity and structured thinking.

A product design question, a segment that tests not just your knowledge of product management principles, but also your creative problem-solving skills, empathy for users, and your ability to align product solutions with business goals.

These questions, often framed as hypothetical scenarios like designing an app or improving service, are crucial in determining your readiness to handle the multifaceted responsibilities of a product manager.

In this article, we delve into effective strategies for tackling product design questions, offering insights and a structured framework that can help you showcase your skills in a product management interview.

Whether you’re asked to conceptualize a novel product or iterate on an existing one, your response can significantly influence your interview’s outcome.

Thus, understanding how to approach these questions is key to not only impressing your interviewers but also proving your mettle as a future product leader.

This article provides insights into effectively tackling such questions, using a structured framework to showcase your product management skills.

We have designed a one page cheatsheet that can help you with any Product Design questions. Comment “Product Design Cheatsheet” to get access to the same.

Product Design Framework

Product Design questions are some of the most asked and anticipated questions for PM interviews. I follow a simple framework that helps in any situation.

• Why
• Who
• Pain points
• Solution

The above framework is easy to remember and is life saver when you don’t know what to do. The C.I.R.C.L.E framework is also quite effective and can be used in product design questions.

But here we will use the WWPS framework and try to address the problem statement with the same.

The WWPS framework can be extended for addressing product design questions in an interview, making the framework more detailed and your answers more articulate:

1. Clarifying Questions: Begin by asking questions to understand the scope and key objectives of the product. This shows your attention to detail and ensures you address the right problem.
2. Identifying the Purpose: Clearly define why the product is needed, which aligns the subsequent design process with specific goals and user needs.
3. User Analysis: Determine who will use the product and map out their journey. Understanding the target user is crucial for creating a product that resonates with them.
4. Pain Points: Identify challenges or problems users might face with the current solutions. This helps in focusing on areas that require innovation or improvement.
5. Proposing Solutions: Brainstorm and list potential solutions to the identified pain points. Be creative and consider various aspects like usability, technology, and business viability.
6. Prioritization: Prioritize the proposed solutions based on factors like impact, feasibility, and alignment with business goals.
7. Summary: Conclude by summarising your approach, highlighting how your design addresses the user needs and business objectives.

Design Swiggy for Senior citizen

Candidate: OK, that sounds good, I am familiar with the Swiggy app. So the problem statement is “We are building a food delivery app for senior citizens.” Is my understanding right?

Interviewer: Yes.

Candidate: Before I dig deeper into the problem, I would like to ask some clarifying questions so that we are on the same page. is that fine?

Interviewer: Yes

Candidate: Are we integrating this into the exisiting Swiggy app or creating a brand-new application?

Interviewer: We can use either route. It’s up to you.

Candidate: OK, I will keep that in mind, Also do we have any timeline here? or development constraints?

Interviewer: You get a small team of developers who can work on this with you. The management is expecting to see the first build or MVP within 2 quarters.

Candidate: OK, sounds fair, Also Swiggy currently has many other features like Dineout, Instamart, and Giene. Is there an expectation that these will be available in this app?

Interviewer: Yes, the app is expected to have all those features.

Candidate: OK, And here the assumption is the senior citizens are also using smartphones and have access to the Swiggy application right? Or are we trying to target users with feature phones? Because I believe still many senior citizens use the feature phone as their daily driver.

Interviewer: Let's just limit it to smartphones.

Candidate: And assuming that Swiggy would like to target the current market where they already have their presence right?

Interviewer: Yes

Candidate: I think I have answers to my questions and assumptions. Here is how I will tackle the question.

1. Will start with answering: Why are we building this?
2. Who are we building this for?
3. What is the current user journey and what gaps are present?
4. Pain points of the target users
5. Solutions to tackle the problem
6. Final summary of how I as a PM am going to tackle it.

Does that sound fair?

Interviewer: Yes, please go ahead.

Candidate: Give me a couple of minutes to structure my thoughts and jot down some points.

Interviewer: Sure.

Candidate: OK, now that I have my structure ready I will go through them step-wise and try to address each step.

Interviewer: Ok

Candidate: First let's look into why are we building this product. What is Swiggy's mission? Why Swiggy wants to build something for the senior citizen.

Siwggy started as a food delivery app with a mission to change the way India Eats. With the current target market being India. They expanded into multiple categories.

From grocery delivery to resturant table booking.

With their current mission being to reimagine the convenience experience.

Swiggy has millions of customers but most of the users are young adults who find it easy to navigate around a smartphone.

Most Swiggy users are between the ages of 15 to 50.

So it makes sense to target a new segment of users to increase their total daily orders and indirectly increase revenue.

Does that sound good or anything that I might have missed?

Interviewer: No, please go ahead.

Candidate: The who for this problem statement I think is easily definable.

The goal is to target users in the age group of 55+ who have access to smartphones.

Building a separate app for senior citizens would mean that the current application is not for this target user.

Let us understand the current user journey and find gaps that might make it difficult for senior citizens to use it.

Opens the Swiggy App > Selects Current location > Selects between Food, Dineout, Instamart, and Giene > Goes through 100s restaurant options. > searches for specific item > Selects one from 100s of options. > Searches specific restaurants> Select the item and add to the cart > Goes to the cart and applies coupon if any > Selects the payment method > Makes payment> Order is placed > Tracks order and contacts delivery guy for any inputs

The above user journey has multiple points which increases cognitive load. Which is not good for the target users of senior citizens.

Based on this user journey, I will try to identify the pain points.

Anything that I might have missed? or you would like to add anything?

Interviewer: Not as of now, please continue

Candidate: Based on the user journey there are multiple pain points for senior citizen

1. Selecting the address: It is difficult to write the address or select the most accurate one
2. Don’t know where will I find the best Food item I am looking for.
3. 100s of restaurants and food options to confuse: This would increase the cognitive load of the users.
4. Selecting the payment options and adding coupons: Might not select the coupon and find it difficult to select from different payment options.

These pain points make it difficult for senior citizens to use Swiggy and make an order.

Now that I have the pain points identified I will try to tackle them with some effective solutions.

Interviewer: Ok

Candidate: I have decided not to build a completely new app for the senior citizen but rather utilize the existing infrastructure and try to create a flow for the senior citizens there.

This is done because we already have some deadlines to meet and most of the users are currently on with the Swiggy app so makes sense to use it.

When a new user downloads the app and asks for the age of the user. Based on the age we will provide an option to use Swiggy Lite. A simpler and less feature app.

With a tooltip mentioning: that the app is best suited for old people.

Then below are some of the solutions to address the painpoints of these users.

1. When the user opens the app, the app selects the location using the GPS and triggers a voice command “Kindly tell us your location”. So the location will be taken in audio format and can be used by the delivery agent to get to the exact location.
2. The app creates a 2KM radius around the GPS location and shows a list of restaurants nearby. This will make sure the food is delivered at the quickest time and the food remains hot while delivering.
3. The app will list the most famous and high-rated food items nearby. This will reduce the cognitive load of the user for food selections. The closest, high-rated food will be shown as the recommended places. Even if the user searches for a particular food item let's say “French Toast”. The highest-rated French toast and closest will be shown at the top.
4. Once the user adds to the cart directly the best coupon to be selected and the user can choose from Cash, UPI, and other options. Cash and UPI will be visible upfront since these are the most used payment methods.
5. User can create daily orders that will be delivered to these users in a set item period. These can be recurring orders.
6. The entire process can be even daunting sometimes for the target users. The Swiggy lite can have a phone-based ordering system. Where the users can directly phone the Swiggy operator and ask for a food item and the operator can directly place an order and will directly appear in the app for the user to track.

These are the solutions to the pain points mentioned for these users.

Interviewer: How will you prioritize these solutions? Or will you build everything?

Candidate: The phone based operator system will take a lot of new infrastructure to be build and also manpower required to attend the calls. So will not go with that.

I will prioritize the first 4 solutions for the Swiggy lite MVP. I think those are crucial for the functioning of the app. Given the timeline I believe these features will be enough to build and do a small beta launch to select customers to check with the product usability and get some feedback.

Interviewer: Any other thing that you wish to add to the app in the future?

Candidate: I think senior citizen would be more inclined in getting grocery delivered to their doorstep. So maybe look into bundling grocery delivery here or repetitive delivery of grocery items.

Interviewer: Sounds good. I think that was nicely structured good job on that. Would you like to summarise and close this up?

Candidate: Sure, For the task of designing a food delivery app tailored for senior citizens, our initial focus was on understanding the underlying motivation for Swiggy in developing this app. This step was critical in identifying the potential benefits and objectives behind the app, ensuring that the development aligns with Swiggy’s strategic goals and provides tangible value to its users.

Next, we delved into defining our target user segment. To do this, we asked a series of clarifying questions aimed at understanding the specific needs and preferences of senior citizens. This helped in segmenting the users based on their accessibility to the app and Swiggy’s market reach, ensuring that the app’s design caters to the right audience effectively.

After establishing a clear understanding of our user base, we moved on to identify key pain points. These included challenges such as difficulties in navigating technology and specific requirements from restaurants. We achieved this by mapping out the user journey, which provided insights into the various touchpoints where users might face obstacles.

Finally, we focused on developing solutions to these identified pain points. Our strategy included implementing a more simplified app interface to enhance usability for seniors, integrating voice command features for easier navigation, and providing detailed nutritional information to cater to specific dietary needs. These solutions were designed to create an intuitive and user-friendly experience for senior citizens, aligning with both their needs and Swiggy’s business objectives.

Yaa, Do you think I missed anything? Or would you like to add anything?

I: No I think you summarized it properly. Good job with the problem statement.

Conclusion

The candidate does. a good job of structuring the Answer. The structure makes it easier to understand the candidate's thinking style and structuring. However the candidate would have put more effort into prioritizing the solutions and justifying them.

Product design questions in product management interviews are opportunities to showcase your ability to think critically, empathize with users, and align product solutions with business goals.

By following a structured approach, you can demonstrate your proficiency in handling real-world product challenges, making you a standout candidate for any product management role. Remember, the key is not just to provide solutions but to demonstrate a thoughtful, user-centered approach to problem-solving.