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. — Muzli
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.
9 Comments
Voice-input directory / destination with confirmation.
4 Braille dials.
An operator who watches numbers painted on the inside of the doors flash by through the scissor door.
Chris, disagree because you've missed the point in you made in your "rant."
The answer is none- The only feasible 1000 floor building would be one for drones, and they don't need elevators. So the next question is who are you designing the core for- humans or more robots?
I've heard tell that this is the type of construction they're looking at in places like Motherboard. Mat landscape of networks trying to go vertical to access the cloud...
Can't create drama w/o theft!
East problem to solve. Most design challenges I solve have incomplete information. I have to make assumptions in order to solve the problem. The author of this article does not make a valid point. If one was give the challenge AND all the answers, there would be no design problem to solve.
Google called. They want to interview me.
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