Design a feature for Facebook Portal to use in case of emergency.

Internet users who would like to keep in-touch with the world either through community or with friends and family and is a user of Facebook ( Web and/or App)

Segments : Type of calamities or emergencies could be many but largely segmenting them into:

Natural calamities - Earthquake, Tsunami, Volcanoes, Flood, Droughts etc. Impact is mass and frequency is not that often
Crime - Robbery, Harassment, Break-in or Mob attack, Bomb Blast, Terrorism etc. Impact could be mass or individual and frequency is in the range (frequent to seldom)
Chemical - Explosion, evacuation. Impact is mass and frequency is not that often
Individual - Car breakdown or Health related callouts etc. Impact is individual and the frequency is higher when compared to other emergencies.

Painpoints

During an emergency and with a fear of hurting ourselves or losing a life, the inability to reach out for help

Alternatives

Do any alternatives exist that is being used as of the given situation?

May be users find picking up phone and calling someone is easier Vs initiating an app and calling out for help. Also Facebook in context requires internet connection (Web or App)

(This is a sense check to evaluate if the problem in hand is worth solving if an alternative exists)

Hypothesis

Facebook is a pretty matured product and the rationale behind why and the value it delivers to users is:

Why : Based on the stats, the DAU and MAU users that is in billions and the company mission, this capability does well align with the goal and has ability to have a mass benefit and impact.

Value : This is a 2-way street, therefore as a result Users will be able to reach out for help and a sense of relief that help is on the way when the responders respond.

Use Cases to prioritise

Based on the type of emergencies listed above, I would like to test and see if this worth building and scaling to mass (cost and effort). Therefore choosing the use case that an individual can reach out to closed ones in the emergency situation.

Solution Ideas

100 ft above solution ideas:

This will have to be 2 way street with victim to reach out to closed ones ( 1 or more) by sharing the location and the ability for closed ones to respond back to the victim which provides a relief that help is on the way.

Also we need to identify the cost to roll this out to mass audience because the app needs to be designed as offline access and ability to handle the performance too.

Value this is expected to deliver to users : Ability to reach out for help in an emergency and a sense of relief or consolation that help is on the way based on the use case prioritised to test.

Primary User Metric : # of users accessing this capability.

Guardrail metric : If the hypothesis testing proves or disproves (counterintuitive) then the further Guardrail metrics could be thought about.

(Please note the above approach is based on my perception and highly recommend to take the interviewer through this journey by asking to pause and check or expect further prompts from them)

arpit agrawal · Answer 2 · 2023-06-19T22:02:01+0000

I will approch this questions in 5 parts
- High level problem clarification
- User and User segementation
- User Segment Prioritisation
- Pain Points and Prioritisation
- Solution and Metrics

Facebook Mission: Giving power to people to build their community and bring the world closer.

Why do company wants to build this? As I can think that emergency is a situation when someone needs serious help of others so it totally aligns with company goal.

Do you have a couple of example of what this should do? Not as of now (considering this reply from interviewer)

Users

Person in Emergency
Helping force in emergency (Police, Hospital, Fire-brigade)
Close relatives of person in emergency

Segmentation of “Person in Emergency”

Natural Emergency (Tsunami, Earthquake)
Technical Emergency (Chemical, Nuclear or Cybersecurity)
Terrorism and Crime (Terrorist Attack, Kidnapping)
Health Emergency (Covid, Flue)
Humanitarian Crises (Refugee, Food Shortage, Extreme weather conditions)

Prioritise User Segment
I have an habit of reading news from the last 6-7 years and most the emergency news I have read are from Natural Emergency so I am considering its scale as biggest. Natural Emergency Disasters can cause a death on large numbers so I am considering its impact is high.

Pain Points and How they are doing it

Fear about the loss of your closed ones
Looking for Medical Help
looking for shelter/ food

I will choose Looking for “Shelter/food“ because its impact is high and can be done be Facebooks strength around social media network.

Solution

Can find nearby shelters/ food nearby locations from mutuals from their post and business by helping them in run Ads for Free around help for these users

Success Metric : % of users reaching location. Guardrail Metric: % of wrong information for shelter/food.