Product Design - Co-habitat with Roommates and Partners
Product Design Interview Question -HomeSync — Designing a Product to Help Roommates Live Better Together
How to Answer Product Design Questions?
Here is a step by step guide/framework, you should follow while answering product design interview questions:
Ask clarifying Questions to narrow the scope.
Define the Goal you want to achieve.
User Segment Analysis.
List and prioritise the Pain Points.
List out your Solutions.
Evaluate and Prioritise the Solutions.
Define the Success Metrics.
GTM
Summarise your answer.
1. Ask Clarifying Questions
Are we focusing on roommates (operational challenges) or significant others (emotional dynamics)?
Its upto you, you can decide.
Should the product work for newly formed groups or long-term cohabitation?
Its upto you, you can decide.
What do we define as Roommates or Couples?
For the scope of this answer, we are focusing on Roomates or Couples who are staying together for a longer period (>30 days).
Segments excluded: Family Guests, Paying Guests, AirBnB Guests, who live together for a shorter period of time.
What is the initial focus market (e.g., India, US, Europe)?
For now focus on India.
2. Define the Goal
Help people living together manage shared responsibilities, maintain transparency, and reduce conflicts — ultimately improving harmony in shared living spaces.
Success looks like:
Since its a new app we will be launching, hence building adoption and engagement of the platform with the early adopters would be the primary goal.
Stickiness - DAU/MAU
Reduction in conflicts
Increased task completion
Improved satisfaction with living arrangements.
3. User Segments
Following are the list of user segments,
Students and Early Professionals (Age: 18 to 30) - Sharing flats to save on cost
Couples (Live-in / Married) (Age: 25 to 50) - Partners managing households together
Landlords and Co-living platforms (Housr, Oyo Life, Nestaway etc.)
Focus Segment: Students and Early Professional
Reason: High Friction, Lack of Structure, Needs more clear digital coordination
4. Current User Journey
Users move in to the apartment
Creates WhatsApp groups for coordination, communication and bill payments
Randomly Splits bills via UPI payments or Cash
Keep forgetting chores or miscommunicating schedules
Tensions rise, awkward discussions or passive frustration
Repeat every month
Emotional Journey of the users starts with Excitement, followed by Neutral, followed by irritated and ends with becoming avoidant or conflict.
Current Solutions:
DIY tools: WhatsApp/Texts, shared calendars, spreadsheets.
Apps: Splitwise (expenses), List apps (Google Tasks/calendars)..
Roommate matching: FlatandFlatmates, Social media groups, Nobroker, OYO, other Co-living platforms etc.
5. Pain Points:
Unclear Responsibilities between roommates from the beginning leading to majority of the chores and bill payments done by a single person.
Poor communication between roommates often leads to missed updates, unclear expectation eventually leading to misunderstandings.
No visibility of fairness which leading to more effort and money being put by one person which eventually leads to loss of trust between roommates.
Roommates often avoid direct confrontation to avoid conflicts but such things leads to personal frustration.
Roommates often forget to complete their assigned tasks on time leading to conflicts.
New Roommates before living together doesn’t know the background and past behaviour of their fellow roommates
leading to uncertainty and lack of trust associated with the new member.
Its difficult to keep a track of new tasks, responsibilities, assignment of task and ETA of the task.
Its difficult to get privacy and personal space due to noise, guests, schedule and routine