How would you design a shopping mart for retirement home? -- Google PM Interview Question

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Interviewer: Design a shopping mart for a retirement home

Shailesh: okay, first, let me clarify my understanding of retirement homes. A retirement home is a nursing home where senior citizens live together and socialise. Since older adults require an extra bit of care, all kinds of facilities are provided.
Interviewer: Correct

Shailesh: So let me clarify some questions, are we designing the shopping mart inside a nursing home, or how far is it from there?
Interviewer: You can assume it to be somewhere else.

Shailesh: Also, I want to know if this shopping mart is exclusively for retirement home people or if ordinary people can also come?
Interviewer: You can assume it to be the standard shopping mart that assists people from retirement homes.

Shailesh: What is the geography of such people? Because senior citizens in India might not be that tech-savvy, those in the USA may know how to do digital transactions.
Interviewer: You can decide as you go

Shailesh: The way I would like to approach this problem is first will see our customer segment and their user journey and, depending on that, will see some of the pain points. After prioritising the pain points, we can see potential solutions in priority and corresponding success metrics. Last, we can think of possible tradeoffs or future aspects of the solution.
Interviewer: Okay

Shailesh: These will be our customer segments who will be coming to the shopping mart.

  1. Nursing home people with little and no tech literacy but want to socialise.
  2. Nursing home people who are socially awkward and don’t like to visit places until and unless necessary.
  3. Nursing home people who are physically challenged (physically handicapped)
  4. Senior age home people’s caretakers/assistants
  5. Shopping mart people/staff

I would like to consider people without tech literacy because if we have solved the problem for them, we will be able to solve the problem for most of people.

  1. Get some requirements of daily essentials, small outings etc.
  2. They get permission or inform the respective authorities of the nursing homes.
  3. They reach the shopping mart.
  4. They start shopping for essentials from their laundry list.
  5. They navigate from one counter to another counter.
  6. They go to the billing counter, pay for the items and come home.

I am assuming that the people from the retirement home have got the permission or informed the authorities and are now at the entrance of the shopping cart.

  1. They should be able to enter the shopping mart hustle free
  2. They should be able to move in the shopping mart quickly and should be able to navigate through different counters.
  3. They should know which products are kept where and should be able to see the pricing.
  4. They should know which product is suitable for them, like gluten-free/allergic items must be avoided by those who have allergies to these items.
  5. Since everyone wants to socialize with friends, old age people must also have feelings of having fun, so they should be able to eat an item of their choice with their fellow buddies.
  6. The billing of the items must be quick; they shouldn’t be waiting in queue and juggling cash exchanges etc.
  1. There should be a smart ID card issued by the nursing homes linked with the supermart. ID cards should have all the essential details, including their medical information as well. There should be a priority queue for senior citizens to enter; people from old age homes can swipe the card there and enter. It will also log their enter and exit timing for their security purposes.
  2. Since it is an old age home, the majority of people will be senior citizens. So inside the shopping mart, there can be a separate section for senior citizens with a lot of easily understandable big infographics to easily navigate through the section. Also, we can have a railing inside the area for their assistance. The shopping mart should provide a moving cart in which they can put their items. It should be lightweight and without any sharp edges.
  3. On every shelf of the product, the price and name of the item should be mentioned in big fonts so that they can understand easily.
  4. Since they have a Smart-ID card that has all the medical information details like allergic to certain items or some chronic ailments, at each shelf, there can be a scanner at which they can swipe their card to know if that product is good for them or not. Suppose it is not suitable for them, then the salesperson can assist them with the alternative product.
  5. Since the human being is a social creature, socialisation is something that every individual wants; it becomes even more important at an older age. So if they are in the mood for an outing, there should be a small café in that section from which they can buy products by swiping their ID card, with no need to pay. There can be community catered music as well.
  6. At the time of billing, the item should be packaged and delivered to their retirement home, and the payment is automatically made by the smart card. The retirement home authorities should recharge this card monthly.
  7. In future, we can have a solution in which the whole shopping mart has a lot of cameras and using facial recognition and computer vision, the shopper can be provided with a recommendation for items from their task lists/laundry lists (like fetching data from google keep). They just have to walk into the shopping mart; they have to pick the item from the shelf; if it is allergic, a red light would be flashed. They just need to pick the item from the shelf, and it will automatically be added to their shopping cart for billing, and if they put it back, it will be cleared from the cart. They just need to walk out of the mart, and the payment will automatically be deducted.

Certainly, there will be challenges for people who are not tech-savvy, and there will be privacy and ethical issues for facial recognition and tracking, so we will keep this feature for the future. For MVP I will be considering the solution #1, #2, #3, #4, #6.
Having a café would be a delight, but we can have it in the future stage.

  1. Number of check-ins by people from retirement homes.
  2. Average cart value of people from retirement homes.
  3. The average amount of time they spend in the shopping mart.
  4. Frequency of the visit of a certain individual from retirement home.

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