How would you improve iOS Reminders?

Improving iOS reminders

As per my understanding, iOS reminders is a pre-installed app on all iPhones and it can be used for creating & tracking multiple tasks. Once the task is done, a user can mark it as done on Reminders app and it goes away. You can also set reminders on specific tasks so that you don't miss doing it.  Apart from this, i believe iOS reminders app has multiple small features like tags, recurring tasks, etc to help a user manage their professional or personal tasks

Do we have any specific goal in mind when we talk about improvement?

Interviewer: you decide! 

Alright, so I believe that acquisition on iOS wouldn't be that big of a problem since this is a pre-installed app on iphones.

Revenue is less likely to be one of the goals since reminders app is free and apple focuses on provide simple, easy to use and value adding free apps with their iOS device. 

Improving engagement and retention could be a potential goal. I would like to go ahead with this. 

Alright, In order to reach a position where I'm able to come up with some good engagment and retention oriented improvements on iOS reminders, Here's the structure I would like to follow-

- I'll first figure out the key user groups and prioritise a particular user group based on the impact we can have on that particular user group 

- Post that, I'll come up some pain points of that particular user group and proritise those pain points based on the level of impact 

- After this, I'll discuss the solutions related to proritised pain point and decide which solutions to proritise and why

Does that sound good? 

So, when i think of users, I believe we can segment them based on age-

- School going kids

- Undergrad or masters students 

- Working professionals

- Elderly people

Since every age group will have a different primarily usecase of iOS reminders in their lives.  I feel we can focus on working professionals since this segment would have most no. of parallel things going on (work wise and personal as well) and they would have max need of Reminders app to manage their lives better. 

So with this user group, I'd like to take a min to think on the pain points of working professionals. Is that okay?

Interviewer: yes 

(After a min)

Working professionals could be using reminders app to be productive in both professional or personal life. Professional life tasks would depend on the kind of work they are doing (like a photographer might have recurring photography-related tasks) and personal life tasks would involve errands, goal-related, ocassions to remember etc. 

Looking at the user journey of working professionals, I feel there are following pain points- 

1. Missed adding something important on reminders app

2. Missed doing tasks before due date

3. Added too many tasks and list became overwhelming

4. Not motivated to work on things I added

5. Adding same task repeatedly

6. Unsure if my productivity has actually improved because of Reminders app

7. Personal and professional tasks got mixed

Now, proiritising these pain points based on impact we can have on our user segment of working professionals, 

1. Low Impact- Reminders app already solves this to a good extent by providing widgets, add reminders with siri & add via apple watch

2. High Impact

3. Medium Impact- since this is only for those users who are adding lots of tasks on reminders app at a single point of time

4. High Impact- would be applicable to most of our target segment

5. Medium Impact- recurring tasks is already a feature which be used

6. High Impact- I'm using reminders app to improve my productivity, knowing whether it is improving or not could be a primary indicator of app's usefulness in my life

7. Medium/Low Impact- iOS reminders app already provides labels which can easily be used to segregate personal and professional tasks

While prioritising the problems, I figured out that problem 4 is actually a subset of problem 2. 

I'm more interested in tackling the pain point 6 as I believe solving it can be something even more impactful than paint point 2. 

I would now like to take a minute to think through the solutions which can help a user visualise their productivity improvement- 

1. Achievements and badges: Rewarding badges for multiple different types of achievements like completing all tasks with today's due date, checking off atleast two tasks everyday, etc

2. Asking user to rate their day (with respect to task management) and then showing a trend of how it has changed over time

3. Letting users assign some karma points to be earned with each task and showing how many karma points they have earned till today

4. Using the concept of pomodoro app FOREST to show trees getting planted in your virtual forest as you complete your tasks

5. Providing a productivity score based on tasks you add, tasks you mark complete and time taken to mark it complete

Now prioritising the solutions based on impact and effort- 

 1. Medium impact, Medium effort

2. High impact, Low effort

3. Medium impact, medium effort

4. Medium/low impact, High effort 

5. High Impact, High effort

Based on this I would like to go ahead with a simple solution of asking users to rate their day with respect to task management at the end of the day. 

Detailing out this solution- 

 User will get a push notification which takes them to rate screen. Also, in-app nudge to rate their day at around 8 pm. On rate screen, We can ask 'how easy was it to manage today's tasks' and provide options like very easy, easy, neutral, difficult and very difficult. 

Based on these ratings, we can provide a holistic view of how productivity has changed compared to previous month like change in no. of times user has marked 'very easy' or 'easy' in this month vs previous month. 

Along with this, we can put relevant content which can help user to utilise reminders app effectively like- 

- Using labels to organize tasks

- Adding due dates