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Which Google product don't you like and why? What would you do to improve it?

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I have a question not specifically related to the prompt:  When you are at an interview, how do you scribble all this info on a paper given the time limitations?  How much time should you allocate to think and write?  Do you write shorthand?
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Google's products are very good. I am almost attracted by most of them, but Google Translate.

To clarify why Google Translate is not a good product from my point of view and how to improve it, I will go step by step. First, I will clarify the Goal of product. Then identifying the user segments. Next, analyzing the pain points of users before jumping into the solutions. Finally, making a conclusion.

1. Goal

Because the vision of Google is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful", I make assumption that the goal of Google Translate would be "Make contents around the world be accessible". Please correct me if I'm wrong.

2. User

There are a lot of kinds of users using Google Translate, but I will categorize them into 3 main segments:

  • Translator: People use Google Translate as one of primary assistants to help them translate the documents professionally.
  • Writer: People use Google Translate as a dictionary to help them find a suitable world when writing in the unfamiliar languages
  • Reader: People use Google Translate to find the meaning of words while reading.
Because we don't have too much time to dig into all groups so I will pick one of them. It should be Reader because from my point of view and the data report I got to read a couple of weeks ago, the numbers of people using Google Translate when they are reading is the most common scenario. I'm not so sure about that, so what do you think?

3. Pain poin

  • User experience: Because the current version of Google Translate is a stand-alone website, so it's extremely inconvenient when using it. First, users have to switch among diffrent tabs and windows to do translation. Second, they have to input the text they want to translate by themselves. It's totally incovenient in many ways because it decreases the reading productivity and also makes readers feel very exhausted and distracted when switching and inputing.
  • Offline: Google Translate is the online application => it's totaly useless if users don't have a internet connection
  • Content:
    • Meaning of single word is acceptable, except the trending words
    • Meaning of idiom: very bad, translate word by word
    • Sentence: Not stable, most results do not suit to the real meaning

4. Solution

 

SOLUTION

IMPACT

COMPLEXITY

Build extension for browser and OS

  • Pop-up

  • Auto pronunciation

High

Improve UX => More convenient => Used more => More data => Enhance performance

Medium

Create a new software with the existing database is not difficult but need time and resources

Update idiom’s data

High

Idioms are used more => Better translate results => Impact to sentence translation

Low

- Idioms’ sources are common

- Index/ crawl/ Reference/ Buy data from other resources like dictionaries

NLP Module for sentence translation

Medium

- Impact is medium because sentence translation is used less common word and idiom 

- Unique selling point in the long run

- Good source for other NLP products

High

- Structure and Sentence are various

- Cost is expensive

Offline version for words and idiomsLow
- There are a lot of options people can use when they are offline
Medium
- Have to optimize performance and data because everything moves to offline

5. Conclusion

According to the score of IMPACT and COMPLEXITY, I think the prioritization order should be:

  1. Update idiom’s data
  2. Build extension for browser and OS
  3. NLP Module for sentence translation
  4. Offline version
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Google Duo is an application which i couldn't use it a lot.

Google Duo provide Video call service while Google hangout has this fuction while it provides additional services as well, i mean that it's more comperhensive than Duo and it can address many issues in One Application. in continue i'm going to merge google duo with google hangout and improve the application. we can apply all features of Google Duo video call for google hangout and improve the quality of video call in hangout. in continue i'm going to improve hangout after merging with Duo. 

Product Goal: easy and fast sending any contents and make video and Audio call. 

Business Goal: Growth revenue, increase user engagement. 

Users : Personal user, Business user (who use it as part of G Suit). 

Users Needs: 

  • Send their any Contents in secure way.
  • Take note during the meeting. 
  • Sending the location during the chat. 
  • Create event during the call or chat. 
  • Easily send the content from Google Drive. 
  • working with Voice Commands. 

Sloutions: 

  1. Built-in Secury tool to Scan all attachment and Url which we receive to prevent any cyber security attack. in addition built-in Encryption tool to encrypt file before sending (because we always send important file which include business information or data, so security is very significant). 
  2. Integration with Keep (easily access to keep from hangout to take note during the call or chat).
  3. Integartion with Google Map to share location in chat.
  4. Integration with Google Drive to easily send file from it. 
  5. Integration with voice assitants to send msg or calling easily by voice commands.

prioritization: 

2,3,4 (effort: M , Benefit: H)

1 (effort: H, Benefit: H)

5 (effort: H, Benefit: M)

 

Metrics of success: 

#user acquisition #user retention #session length

 

all these features improve existing version of Hangout and help to user more use this app because all these new featuress address their existing issues. So user revisit this application regulary - DAU and WAU are increasing. They spend more time in this app in each visit. And many new users who have Security concerns adopt and use it which lead to gain new users and increase revenue. 

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Things you did well 

  • Product Description: You did a great job explaining what the product does and how it works today 
  • Assumptions: You came up with good set of assumptions to narrow down the scope of the question
  • Product Goal: You did a good job describing the objective that you are going to focus on 
  • User groups: Great job breaking down the users to multiple user groups  
  • Pain points: You listed a good number of meaningful pain points / user needs

Areas of Improvement 

  • Pain points: After listing the pain points, I suggest you evaluate them based on some criteria that you find relevant (e.g. severity of pain) and prioritize them. You won't be able to address all the pain points on your first product launch so it's important to show that you can prioritize between various pain points 
  • List more solutions: I think integration solutions are great but I wouldn't highlight too many of them. The interviewer wants to see you think of ideas they have probably not thought about. Integration ideas are usually in the roadmap of all products and companies get to them when they have time. Focus on listing more creative ideas:)
  • Metrics of success: pick a "primary" metric from the list of metrics you've provided and label the additional metrics as secondary. Also, can you elaborate why the three listed metrics are important? 
  • Answer format: This is just a feedback for the format of your answers so people can easily read them and post more feedback. I suggest using the editor to have a heading for each section of your answer:)

Looking forward to seeing more answers from you!

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