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Product sensestandard
Design a carpooling app for a college campus.
How to approach it
Ask who the riders and drivers are and what trips matter most: daily commutes, weekend trips home or late-night returns.
How a strong answer opens
“I'd start with the trips that matter most: daily commutes, weekend trips home or late-night returns. And this is two-sided, so I need student drivers as much as riders.”
Outline of a strong answer
Try answering out loud for a few minutes before you open this.
- Clarify campus size, trip types and who is allowed to use it
- Name both sides: student drivers and student riders
- Pain points: trust between strangers, splitting cost, matching schedules
- Ideas: school-email verification, recurring rides, cost split, safety check-ins
- Prioritize trust and matching as the launch must-haves
- Measure completed rides per week and repeat rider rate
Where this question usually goes wrong
Designing for riders only and forgetting that a carpool app fails without enough drivers, or skipping trust between students who are strangers.
Learn the method
The framework in one page in Module 1, Product sense and design.
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