Google's infamous 1000 floor elevator design question

2017-06-23T17:52:00-04:00

Potential employers don’t pose design challenges with the expectation that you blow them away with your ingenuity or clever solutions. They want to see if you ask probing questions that uncover constraints, or if you rush to the whiteboard without deeper understanding.

Design challenges are often used by companies to asses potential employees’ problem solving skills. This Google interview challenge in particular seems to have captivated the design community

—How do you design an interface for a 1000 floor elevator?

Dozens of designers around the world have attempted solving the problem by designing elevator's interface. They've all failed because of presuming too many variables—the user, the environment, the purpose... The answer to the question is that there is simply not enough information provided.

Archinect - News

Google's infamous 1000 floor elevator design question