Designing for people with permanent disabilities can seem like a significant constraint. But the resulting designs often benefit a much wider group of users.
Design questions that ask you to create products for elderly users test more than your ability to sketch a UI. They test whether you understand user behaviour, how to uncover hidden needs, and how to structure your problem-solving approach. Your actual job is to demonstrate a systematic way to get from vague user groups to concrete, prioritized product decisions.
Most candidates jump to solutions without asking critical clarifying questions. They miss key constraints or user conditions that shape design choices. The trap is to assume "elderly" means one uniform persona. In practice, there is huge variation in age, physical and cognitive ability, tech familiarity, and context of use.
This lesson teaches you how to approach such questions deliberately — with a mindset that respects the complexity of the problem and uses inclusive design to solve for one, extend to many.
Start by asking clarifying questions about the users
Before you sketch anything, you must understand who you are designing for. The group "elderly people" is too broad to design for effectively.
In a recent Pragmatic Leaders session, I asked a candidate: "YouTube for old people." The candidate asked important questions:
- What is the age range? (65 to 75 years old)
- Are they physically healthy? Any visual impairment or cognitive challenges?
- How comfortable are they with technology or smartphones?
These questions matter because they determine your design constraints. A 65-year-old with good eyesight and tech experience will have very different needs than an 80-year-old with arthritis and mild dementia.
Let me be direct about this: you must surface these assumptions explicitly. The interviewer wants to see your curiosity and rigor, not your guesswork.
Mock product design interview
Interviewer: “Design YouTube for old people.”
You (candidate): “What age range should I consider? Are there any disabilities or impairments I should be aware of?”
Interviewer: “65 to 75 years old, generally healthy.”
You (candidate): “Thanks. That helps me narrow the scope before proposing solutions.”
This is the kind of clarifying you want to do before jumping to features.
Getting assumptions right is the foundation for a good design.
Identify pain points and use cases specific to elderly users
Once you have user context, the next step is to identify their pain points and the key use cases your product should serve.
From the transcripts and live sessions, here are some common pain points elderly users face with smartphones:
- Not tech-savvy; struggle with complex or unfamiliar UI patterns
- Touch-based interfaces can be confusing or imprecise for some
- Difficulty reading small fonts or discerning icons
- Cognitive overload from too many options or notifications
- Physical challenges such as tremors or arthritis affecting precise taps
Use cases that matter most for elderly users often differ from younger audiences. Typical priorities include:
- Ordering groceries or essentials easily
- Commuting or booking transportation without hassle
- Quickly contacting doctors or scheduling hospital appointments
- Making video calls or sending messages to loved ones
You should explicitly state these pain points and use cases in your answer to show you understand the user's world.
Prioritize features based on user impact and feasibility
Not all features are equally important. You must prioritize based on what delivers the most value to the user and what is feasible to build.
For elderly users, the highest priority features typically include:
- One-touch access to doctors or emergency contacts
- Simplified video calling and messaging
- Voice commands to reduce typing and navigation complexity
Medium priority might be grocery ordering or transport booking, depending on user interviews.
Low priority could be social media or gaming apps, which may not be relevant.
In the Pragmatic Leaders sessions, candidates who explicitly categorize features into high, medium, and low priority, and explain their rationale, score better.
Prioritization should be backed by user research questions such as:
- Who do elderly users call most often?
- What apps do they use regularly?
- What frustrates them most about current smartphones?
Feature prioritization workshop
You (PM): “High priority: doctor calls, video chat with family. Medium: grocery orders, transport booking. Low: social media.”
Designer: “Should we explore voice control and gesture navigation for these?”
You (PM): “Yes, but let's validate with elderly users first.”
Prioritization grounded in user evidence is critical.
Choosing the right features to focus on maximizes impact.
Apply inclusive design principles to your product
Inclusive design means designing products that work for people with a wide range of abilities and contexts. It is not an afterthought but a core approach.
Talvinder often emphasizes the principle: Solve for one, extend to many. Designing for a severe constraint often benefits many users.
For example:
- Closed captions initially designed for hearing-impaired people are now used widely in airports and noisy environments.
- Voice controls designed for users with dexterity issues can help anyone who needs hands-free operation.
For elderly users, inclusive design principles include:
- Use large, high-contrast fonts and clear icons
- Provide voice input and voice feedback
- Simplify navigation with fewer steps and clear affordances
- Avoid unnecessary animations or distractions
- Support error correction and confirmation prompts
- Respect privacy and consent, especially for features like video calls
In the Pragmatic Leaders sessions, I recommend candidates mention these principles explicitly and relate them to their design choices.
- Pick a common smartphone feature (e.g., messaging, calling, browsing).
- Identify three ways elderly users might struggle with it.
- Propose inclusive design adjustments to improve accessibility.
- Reflect on how these changes might help other user groups as well.
Sketching and prototyping your solution
After you have clarified users, prioritized needs, and applied inclusive design, you can move to sketching solution concepts.
Talvinder stresses a structured approach:
- Start with low-fidelity sketches or wireframes to capture the basic layout and flow.
- Focus on key screens that address the highest priority use cases.
- Use placeholders for content, buttons, and images to keep it simple.
- Iterate based on feedback from users or stakeholders.
Tools like Balsamiq or pen-and-paper are fine at this stage.
The goal is not pixel-perfect design but a clear concept that can be validated.
Test yourself: Designing a phone for elderly users
You are interviewing for a PM role at a consumer electronics startup in Bangalore. The interviewer asks: 'Design a smartphone for elderly people.' You have 10 minutes to respond.
The call: What clarifying questions do you ask? How do you identify user pain points and prioritize features? What inclusive design principles do you apply?
Your reasoning:
You are interviewing for a PM role at a consumer electronics startup in Bangalore. The interviewer asks: 'Design a smartphone for elderly people.' You have 10 minutes to respond.
Your task: What clarifying questions do you ask? How do you identify user pain points and prioritize features? What inclusive design principles do you apply?
your reasoning:
From the field: Why inclusive design matters
Where to go next
- If you want to master product design interview questions: Product Design Interview Prep
- If you want to learn inclusive design principles deeply: Inclusive Design Toolkit
- If you want to practice prioritization frameworks: Prioritization Techniques
- If you want to improve user research skills: User Research Methods