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Design a smart whiteboard for an office.

Difficultyproduct designAsked at Microsoft

Question Explain

This question is all about creativity, problem-solving, and innovation. It's asking you to conceptualize and design a 'smart' whiteboard for an office. It's important before you start answering the question that you consider what makes a product 'smart', and what features would be beneficial for a whiteboard in an office setting. It's likely that the interviewer wants to see how you think about user needs, technical feasibility and differentiating features. Start by defining the base features that are already available in a traditional whiteboard and then highlight the enhancements that could be done in the smart version.

Here are a few tips in structuring your response:

  1. Identify the user needs and pain points in using a traditional whiteboard.
  2. Propose an intuitive design that catransform these pain points into features.
  3. Consider incorporating modern technology like AI, IoT, etc. that could bring convenience and enhance productivity.
  4. Also, ensure to think about the feasibility of your design and how it could be marketed to attract potential customers.

Answer Example 1

For a smart whiteboard design, let's start with the basics: the board should record all its contents digitally so that after every meeting, team members don’t have to worry about losing any information. This could be facilitated via built-in cameras or sensors which can save high-quality images of the board content periodically.

Next, AI-integration can prove fruitful, especially for businesses. The board should be able to recognize speech, so if someone says "bold that" or "underline this," the board responds automatically. Furthermore, it can offer features like real-time translation for multicultural offices and spell or grammar check capabilities.

The whiteboard should also be collaborative, meaning multiple team members can interact with the board from their device whether they are in the same room or remotely. This could be made possible through internet and cloud technology.

Finally, the board could have touch sensitive screens, zoom in and out features and could even show previous sessions' notes just by invoking a command. Such features would greatly help in enhancing office productivity and collaboration.

Answer Example 2

One of the primary issues with a standard whiteboard is that once the meeting is over, the valuable insights and information written manually on it could be lost forever. To solve that, the smart whiteboard should have the feature to digitally record and save all written content automatically.

Moreover, this smart whiteboard could have connectivity options to connect with various devices for remote collaboration. To make it more interactive, a touch-sensitive feature could be installed, allowing the users to move, delete, or re-arrange items on the board with just a simple touch or swipe.

The smart whiteboard could be equipped with an AI assistant, ensuring smooth office meetings by setting reminders, adding important dates, and showing relevant information during discussions.

Lastly, integrating a smart recognition feature would also be beneficial. This feature could recognize words, images, or diagrams and search relevant information automatically, saving the user's time and effort.

Both of these designs aim at creating a more productive and efficient workspace by optimizing a traditional office tool, the whiteboard, considering user needs and the advancements in technology.

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