mediumBehaviouralScenarioCase StudyMidSeniorStaffLead
You are asked to design a product that does not exist, and the setup is missing details you would need in real life. Do you point that out?
Yes, once and briefly, with an assumption attached. In a hypothetical product exercise the scored move is what follows. Separate gaps that change the design from gaps that do not, choose assumptions that keep the problem hard, write them where both of you can see them, and say which parts of the design depend on each.
5 min readUpdated 2026-10-09
Answer
Short answer
Yes, but once, briefly, and with a proposed assumption attached. In a hypothetical product interview, noticing the gap is the easy half. What gets scored is what you do next: whether you can tell a missing detail that changes the design from one that does not, whether the assumption you choose keeps the problem hard, and whether you name which decisions rest on it.
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Likely follow-ups
- The interviewer answers your question with "what do you think?". What do you do with that?
- Halfway through, a detail you were given contradicts one from the start. How do you raise it?
- Which of your assumptions would you test first if this product were real, and how cheaply?
- When is a setup so unrealistic that saying so is the most useful thing you can do in the room?
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