How would you design a web search engine for children below 14 years old?

This is my first answer on the platform, would love to hear feedback on the same. 

-        Some questions:

1.      Are we catering to all the kids below 14 years or there is some age bracket we will be catering to. Let’s assume it’s: 9 -14 years

2.      Which platform to cater this browser – app and web both

3.      Are we focusing globally for this browser – Let’s assume answer is yes.

-        Let’s understand the problem we are trying the solve here:

1.      Save the kids from malicious content which might not be age appropriate.

2.      Save kids from hackers as they are more prone to the same.

3.      Parents to keep a check on what their kids are doing – they are using a safe browser or not.

4.      Content which is easy to understand for kids of this age group.

-        Let’s understand the behaviour of two groups here one is the parent and other is kids.

1.      Kids is this are mostly school going and knows how to type, use basic smartphone feature, use English as mode of communication.

2.      Short attention span is there.

3.      Too much text heavy search results will wont work as kids like to understand through infographics, clips, pictures etc.

4.      More into games

5.      High on energy – same energy might get converted into aggression if not channelized properly.

6.      As for parents – concerned about malicious and inappropriate content their kids might get exposed to.

7.      Too much screen time not good for their eyes and continuous sitting impacts the posture of the body.

8.      Connecting and talking to strangers on internet at this age is another issues parent want to solve.

-        Now let’s try to solve and list down features of the product after understanding the user behaviour and needs:

1.      Basic profile creation – including the parents’ details

2.      Search engine optimized to show more pictures and less text for better understanding and to gauge the interest of the kids.

3.      Chat bot assistance – to help the kid with curious questions by just typing in the bot.

4.      Key word assistance and focused search – to help kid get the right and accurate search results.

5.      Additionally, we can provide – connecting with friends through the social browser which will remove the possibility of connecting with the strangers over the internet.

6.      Gamification of search and rewards integration to hook the kids’ interest can be done.

7.      Browser to understand the interest – when opening the browser first time by asking the kid which are the area of interest. Basis which we can share content related to that also every day.

8.      For parents – parental control system will be provided which can monitor the screen time and detailed history.

-        Prioritization:

Summary – In the first phase, we will be developing a search engine for kids targeting age: 10 to 14 years. With profile creation, optimized search, connect with friends and parental control feature.

In the second phase we can focus on AI chat bot and other optimizations like AR/VR space and gamification of search and addition of rewards to problem solving like stuff.

1. Children of power users (Power users are someone who searches at least 10 times a day)
2. Children of occasional users (Occasional users are someone who searches 5-10 times a day)
3. Children of non-occasional users (Non-occasional users are someone who searches less than 5 queries a day)

1. It is difficult to get structured information online for curious children
2. Parental controls for search for kids

1. Avg no. of searches by child
2. No. of repeat visitors
3. Frequency of searches per child

1. It is difficult to get structured information online for curious children
2. Parental controls for search for kids

1. Try to show more content from Ivy Leagues or Teachers who have YouTube channels. Try to recommend those to the learner
2. Curate a playlist so that there is a logical beginning and end to the learning
3. Allow parents to set up duration of watch time

1. Avg no. of searches by child
2. No. of repeat visitors
3. Frequency of searches per child

I am assuming this is for children between 5 to 14 years old as children should learn to read write and speak properly.

Is this for any specific region (as kids especially below 10 years of age might be very comfortable in their native language but not in non-native languages such as English)? à let’s assume US for now

Is it about designing a new search engine altogether or modifying the existing one? à Designing a new web search engine

Is this web search engine for personal use or for by educational institutions? à personal use

Has there been any market research or user study that I should be aware of? à None

Are there any budgetary or time constraints? à None

I will structure the answer by first discussing the business goal of such a product, look at the pain points and prioritize them. Then I will brainstorm a few solutions and evaluate how we can go about solving the issue.

In addition to useful information, there is a lot of negative harmful content as well across the web. Negative can mean misinformation, obscenity, hatred towards certain communities. With respect to kids, negative can also mean something which is not age appropriate. Exposure to such negative information can hamper the growth and development of kids. Since internet is so easily available to kids in the age group of 5-14 years that parents are constantly worried of kids being exposed to such negative information. At the same time, internet gives kids access to a wealth of information to help build their knowledge and learn. So, the mission of such a product can be as simple as “Forget the worries of negativity and complement your kid’s development with a specially designed search engine”.

Parents want their kids to learn in a positive environment. Similarly, kids want to learn and have fun and entertainment while learning.

Pain Points from both kids and parents’ perspectives:

Parents -

• Worried of excessive exposure to internet – P2
• Worried of exposure to harmful content on internet – P0
• Unable to keep an eye on what their children are exactly searching for and learning – P1
• Worried that their children will not share if they have been exposed to some harmful content, and in turn may suffer – P0
• Worried that without elder supervision, kids wont be able to understand what’s right and wrong in the content or establish its authenticity – P0
• Want their children to learn and develop – P1

Kids -

• Want to learn in a fun and interactive way – P1
• Want to learn without parent supervision – P1
• Want to also see what my friends are searching and learning – P2

The above pain points have been prioritized as P0, P1 and P2, taking into consideration the severity, frequency and the users' goals. The ones directly related to the “harmful” aspect of internet access to kids and knowing what’s right and wrong having been marked as P0. The ones related to learning and development have been marked as P1. The other generic ones have been marked as P2. 

 Now, lets brainstorm a few solutions:

1. The web search engine would require a sign up by a parent to decide what type of categories of questions to be answered and not to be answered by the search engine when queried by their kids (optional) and a sign up by the kid for them to access just the search engine and no other parent specific pages of the application
2. The underlying algorithm of the search engine will already be trained on age-appropriate content i.e., content across the web which is harmful for kids. So as new content gets added to the web, the underlying algorithm will filter them out before showing search results.
3. The search engine can show a summary to answer the question asked by the kid in a more children friendly language, followed by search results.
4. Whenever a kid asks/types a query, the search engine can show a good mix of textual results, images, videos, and links (with snippets) of fun/interactive games which can help them learn.
5. The search engine should be able to take in input through text, voice as well as images as kids in the range of 6-10 years might tend to show objects to know about them.
6. The parent should be able to sign into the account and see a summary of queries asked by their children. The dashboard can show the kids’ queries which could have led to being exposed to harmful content. The parent can also flag any item which was shown to the kids as harmful and that can be considered by the underlying algorithm.
7. The search engine should not show any advertisements. The company can earn revenue through a monthly or annual subscription model.

In the initial launch, the solutions 1 and 2 can be implemented as they directly address the pain points or concerns of P0 and is in alignment with the business goal.

In the next release, the solution 6 (addressing P1 concerns of parents), along with solution 3 (with Gen AI summarization capabilities, it should not be very difficult to build) can be implemented.

Followed by solutions 4 and 5.

 Concerns regarding the above solutions -

• Kids, especially children above 10 years of age might feel very stifled as their history of queries asked would be accessible to parents.
• The suggestions from parents on what’s harmful needs to be properly weighed as opinions differ across communities widely.

Clarify - 

1. What is the purpose of the search engine? - to help in education/entertainment like videos, comics/to help acquire new skills/something else?
2. What’s the objective? - Revenue generation/market expansion?
3. For what kind of children? - Children with some disabilities/smart kids/children who has very little knowledge of tech?
4. Where? Where do we want to launch this search engine?

Assumptions - 

1. Build a search engine to help children to improve their learning experience - they want to learn new subjects, new skills, language, history, geography, poems, bicycle, etc.

2. The objective is that we see potential growth in this market segment and hence we want to design a product for them

3. For normal children who are capable of using a search engine

4. Let’s say Indian demography

User Segments  - 

1. Kids are technologically sound - techie kids - easily understand new tech

2. Naive kids - kids who need some time to learn

Pain Points and Needs - 

1. Kids are bored easily - whenever they are reading something, they get bored and distracted easily

2. Kids want information in the shortest and sweetest way possible. They don’t want to read big articles/blogs/magazines, etc.

3. Kids usually love games - any sort of games - which give them rewards - they want satisfaction

4. Important to give the kids an idea about how much time it will take for them to learn a particular topic/subject

5. Kids want to see things that resonate with their mind/behaviour

Design idea - 

Google for kids - 

Explore fun educational articles, learn new skills and gain knowledge by learning how things work in the real world

Features - 

• We can create some gamification effect to push the kids upwards. For example, create badges - silver, gold, platinum based on the number of articles they have read/questions they have solved. Allow kids to compete with each other

• The article recommendations of this search engine should be short and crisp - no fillers/no BS

• Install small educational playables games on the home page of the search engine - teach them stories about great historians using games - for example, world war II or I can be easily explained via games

• Show the estimated time that’s needed to reach a particular piece of content - For ex, 20 mins to reach till the end - keep them motivating by keeping a timer on the side

• The home page should be customizable according to the needs of the want - some kid may be passionate about aeroplanes, ships, or some may geography, a particular movie character, etc.

Alternate design - 

Why to keep a physical search engine for kids by going on googleforkids.com 

Instead - install google for kids on Google home, Alexa, other home smart devices - tell stories, play games, play quiz, etc.

Success metrics - 

1. Acquisition

• # of first-time visitors

• Top N channels for acquisition

• Top N reasons for acquisition - why is the kid here?

• Click through rate

2. Activation

• Avg. time spent daily/weekly/monthly

• # of users who made their first search

• # of users who read their first article 

• Bounce rate

3. Retention

• Avg. # of daily/weekly/monthly sessions per user

• DAU/WAU/MAU

• # of articles read 

• # of searches made daily/weekly/monthly

NS - # of searches made daily/weekly/monthly

1. What company would this be for? Should I assume this is for google search? Yes

2. Is this an entirely different product for Google or a part of the search ecosystem? You can make your own assumptions

3. What are our goals with this product? Are we trying to increase acquisition amongst this user group? Yes assume that the goal is the acquire more users 

Company mission:

The mission for Google is to empower people by organizing the world’s information and sorting it to be useful and accessible to all.

The goal for this product/ how this search engine will contribute to google’s mission:

This product will add to google search. I believe google search currently already allow you to filter out inappropriate content to a certain extent but this product will focus specifically on the needs and safety of children and make parents feel at ease with their child’s everyday browsing and them being able to access appropriate information on the internet.

There are 2 pieces of puzzles here:

1. Children

2. Parents/ Guardian

Users:

1. Children who want to get access to information they need

2. Parents who want their children to stay safe on the internet and get access to appropriate/ approved content only

3. Teachers who want to take advantage of the internet when teaching in classes

For this product I would like to focus on the teaching use case because I believe for children below 14 years old, the most amount of search is done for the purpose of school work. This could actually fit well into the google ecosystem as it could be an educational product and give google competitive advantage for early acquisition for the young generation of users. Google’s partnership with education institutions can also drive revenue generation since the traffic will attract more advertisers looking to promote to this demographic.

User painpoints:

1. Can’t introduce technology into the classroom without it being too distracting - student tend to access gaming sites or other entertainment content instead of engaging with class material/ searching for the purpose of understanding what’s being taught

2. The internet is a dangerous place - false information are hard to identify, phishing traps and inappropriate information are visible to kids

3. Hard to monitor every student at the same time - want to make sure every student is using search safely and appropriately

Proposed solutions:

Subjects that require the most research for pre-14 children are math, social sciences, and sciences

1. Content filtering through class portals, and only topics related to the subject being taught can be accessed and information accessed by everyone forms a library that the class can universally access

2. Block sites that contain sensitive/ inappropriate content and language 

3. Real-time content monitoring - certain domains can be marked so it will be flagged for the teacher’s immediate attention every time a student is accessing it. For example, sources that are considered not credible or sketchy domain names

MVP and feasibility:

Rating each functionality based on effort/ impact

1. H/H

2. L/H

3. M/H

For MVP, I would implement 2 and 3, at least initially, 2 is a must have for a children’s search engine’s promise of safety, 3 is lower effort compared to 1 and brings to the teacher’ attention every time someone is accessing sites that are not related to class/ not credible and provides a guard rail for the product. Both of these functionalities together address the engagement/ safety problems. 1 is a bit too high effort to implement right away, I would wait to see if there’s a product market fit first/ adoption first before developing this functionality.

Potential risks/ constraints

1. What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where are the boundaries for censorship, there’s potential for teachers abuse this, such as: would LGBTQ+ related content be considered appropriate? this would really depend on the teacher

CQ:

1. Role & company - Google PM

2. Goal - Drive engagement for children of that age

3. Timelines & constraints - 3 months, NA

4. Geo - India

5. Platform - App or web -> lets focus on App considering the mobile penetration

Approach: User Persona, Pain Points/Use Cases, Solutions, Metrics

User Persona:

1. Children

   1. H frequency

   2. M frequency

   3. L frequency -> focussing on this base as the frequency of occurrence would be highest and thus the possibility to make an impact

2. Parents

3. Teachers

Use Cases/Pain Points:

1. Before search

   1. What to search - people mostly know what to search so this won’t be a P0 item

   2. How to search - kids are familiar with type/voice based commands 

2. During search

   1. Parental controls

   2. Interactive results - makes sense for kids who relate to images more than text

   3. Time spent

3. After search

   1. Save the search for future usage

   2. Share with friends for fun/learning etc.

Solving for during search use cases:

1. Interactive results:

   1. Image based result by default to grab attention -> H impact, M-H effort

   2. Voice based result output

   3. Filter based option to 

2. Time spent:

   1. Dashboard indicating time spent on search portal, number of searches made -> L-M impact, L effort

   2. Set time limit per day

3. Parental control:

   1. Build separate profile for kids like we have in Amazon kids

   2. Restrict specific searches basis collected age, demographics -> M impact, M-H effort

Summary of features:

1. Image based result by default to grab attention

2. Dashboard indicating time spent on search portal, number of searches made

3. Restrict specific searches basis collected age, demographics

Metrics:

1. Engagement:

   1. No of searches made/day -> trend daily, weekly, monthly

      1. No of searches per kids profile

   2. % image based result delivered

      1. % instances wherein the user found most relevant search in top 3 (measured via clicks and session length)

Firstly, I would like to start with some clarifying questions to this:
 

• Clarifying questions:

1. Are we designing this search engine for Android or IOS?

2. As this would be for children what can be the use-case?

3. What will be the minimum age of the child user?

4. Can kids use these search engine in their Schools as well?

5. Do they really need a specific search engine?

• Clarifications:

1. We can start designing first for Android and then followed by IOS.

2. Kids these days have their personal cell phones and the major use they have is for studying, connecting with each other, designing, watching, listening to music, and often playing games.

3.  Users' age can start from 4 to 14. 

4. Yes, these can be used in schools as well by students as well as their teachers

5. Kids below the age of 14 do need a search engine. Because the current search engine does not have any restrictions or age limitations. So, many times kids get into the wrong means of using it.

• User Groups:

1. School Kids: this group uses SE for daily activities in the school and for study purposes. 

2. Nursery/ KG kids: These kids use SE for browsing poems, stories, drawings, etc.

3. Kids with some special needs: SE for these kids can help in speech synthesis and enhance their learning.

4. Teachers: These teacher groups will help kids to learn the usage of this SE.

• Target User:

1. Special kids: These kids need a SE for learnings as well as growing like others.

2. School kids: These kids need a SE with a set of restrictions on their usage.

• Pain points:

1. How to use: Kids face difficulties in using a web browser at the start as they aren’t familiar with it. 

2. What to Search: They will need instructions before searching and using the browser.

3. Voice Search: As these kids won't be well versed with keywords, they will need a microphone to spell it correctly. 

4. Need of Exciting features: Kids can’t adapt data like elders, hence they will some graphics or animations while fetching the data.

5. Time limit for search: Kids should have some time limit while using a browser. So, they don’t completely rely on it for their learning.

6. Image Scanner: This could help kids scan images as well as large text.

7. Safety from Hackers: As kids are using this browser there are high chances of accounts being hacked. Hence, this needs to be secured first.

8. Customer Support: As kids won’t know how to request support, so there has to be an add-on or extension to their parents for these services.

• Solutions:

1. How to use: Kids face difficulties in using a web browser at the start. We can design UI which helps them with the usage.

2. What to Search: As we discussed there should be certain limitations for searching and scrolling on the web. Hence, kids can certainly search only the data available or set for their ages.

3. Voice Search: As these kids are not well versed with keywords, we can set up a microphone that can spell a keyword they speak and search like the current browser we have. And this can be enhanced by adding a feature that reads the word and provides a list of synonyms as well as pronunciation for the same.

4. Exciting features: We can add a feature that helps them to track their activities and consistency while reading. Also, we can develop UI that changes with the concept and helps them understand depending upon the niche they are searching for along with prompts with notifications to continue from where they have left.

5. Time limit: Excess use of this browser can lead to a dependency and will kill the ability to think and approach a solution or brainstorm ideas. Hence, we can set a timeline feature that will kill/stop the session over time.

6. Image Scanner:  A scanner can be added to scan images, long text, or even videos that are being searched. This scanner can be connected to a parent's device which notifies them of what is being searched.

7. Safety and security: The browser will have a strong security policy and any kind of inappropriate activity found will block the user and during this process, the parents will get notified automatically. Hence, making it safer and more secure for kids.

8. Customer support: As parents will be notified for every activity done by their kid. Similarly, in the case of customer care support, they can request or raise a complaint n their kid’s behalf.

• Prioritization:

As we are designing this for kids and the priorities need to be considered as P0 and P1 are the most important and P2’s are the add-on features ahead.

• Metrics:

The mains metrics we need would be-

1.  User adaptation: for kids to adapt to this SE and get used to the features available. 

2. User Engagements: Creating awareness and making this as a habit for kids to use this browser instead of the current one’s. Eg: Schools can make usage of this SE a compulsion.

3. Product Growth: As the users increase into DAU, MAU. We can enhance and add more features based on the requirements.

4. Retention rate and Conversion rate: No of users continuing the use of this browser and getting converted to daily users from MAUs

5. Usability and Support Metrics: This can help to get details about user experience and also can help to improve customer support services.

6. Feedback: Parents can help us with the feedback and provide their inputs for further process.

• Summary:

As we are designing a web search engine for kids below 14 years of age, we have concisely about the pros and cons and built the features. Hence, we can start designing first for Android applications and check the usage. Also, we can ask for regular feedback from parents or guardians for this search engine which can help us to understand and process other things required.

Clarification:

1. Are we targeting a specific region?
2. What is the need for launching this? Is it to address the need for education by clarifying their doubts or is it for general purpose?
3. What is the scope? Is it going to be an App or web or both?
4. Does it require parental access?
5. What is the goal?

Assumptions for above clarification:

1. Global
2. General purpose
3. Both
4. No. As there are product already available in the market that can be controlled/access restricted by parents. So this one is going to be a child friendly independent product that the kids can use on their own. Infact this is the USP for launching this search engine. It does not require a login. Can be used as a guest like how we use Google now.
5. As this is the new product, I am going to focus on Adoption and engagement for now.

User segment:

1. Children under the age of 5- Kindergarten children that will not need this
2. Children from age 5 to 10- Usually they will be between Grade 1 to Grade 5.

         Use cases: They may search for basic concepts (numbering, spelling, basic sciences). Easy games. Cartoons and animation movies etc

3. Children from 10 to 14- Between Grade 6 to Grade 8. Use cases: They may search for lil more than basics. Science questions, tutorials, search for books to read, movies, music, etc

Current Pain points:

1. Safety- Not child friendly contents. Needs Parents' intervention to make it safe.
2. Difficulty in searching what they want. Correct usage of words may be challenging as they are still growing. Probability of getting the right content is very low.
3. Too many diversions in the content. While searching for educational related purpose, they might get diverted with other things like advertisements, gaming etc.

Possible solution to address above pain points:

1. Restricted content - Child friendly filter is already applied on this search engine by default. It will not show any Adult contents.
2. I would like to categorize it by Age group first to show more relevant contents. The home page will have 2 tiles- For Children between 5 and 10; For children from age 10 to 14;
3. Once this is selected the second level selection would be identifying the purpose. Educational (All concepts related to syllabus); Entertainment (books, games, puzzle, Child friendly movies);

The above 2 points will clearly address the pain points mentioned in 2 and 3. Thus increases engagement too, which is our goal.

4. Restricting the screen time- By default the advisable screen time of any child is 1 hour per day. The same is set per session. If 1 hour is over, the screen redirects to a page that warns them about the over usage. It records screen time everyday.

Are we talking about mobile or web based products?  Web

Who are we? Google

Any specific reason/goal/context why we are thinking about building this product? There seems to be a gap in the market. Kids nowadays are starting to use digital products early on and providing them good and safe internet search experience is going to be critical.

Trends & Opportunity 

• Untapped opportunity

Strengths & Weaknesses

• Already a search giant

• A lot of algorithmic learning can be transferred

• Building a search engine for kids might not be scalable and monetizable.

Goal of the product

User engagement

Map the ecosystem

• Kids

• Teachers

• Parents

I am going to focus on kids as the primary user persona as they will be the one using it and should get the maximum value out of it. We can build for parents/teachers as a secondary persona to give them monitoring control on how the kid uses it.

Segmenting

Kids

• Age 0-2: Infants & Toddlers

• Age 2-6: Preschoolers

• Age 6-12: School Kids

• Age 12-16: Teens

Prioritize a segment

I am prioritizing building for school kids aged 6-12 years. Kids aged 0-2 years are too young. Preschoolers aged 2-6 years old are still thinking majorly in terms of symbols and are not able to interpret text easily. Teens aged 12-16 years old may be a bit old and may already be using normal google search.

Create a user journey & identify pain points

Pain points of kids

Pain point of parents

Prioritize pain points

• How painful?

• Number of alternatives that exist?

Articulate vision and then talk about specific features in detail.

Product strategy: A fun and visual search experience for kids with a lot of engagement and safety features in place.

Reach, Impact, Confidence, Effort

• Autocomplete

• Spell Correct

• Gamified Badges

• Big Thumbnails

• Large font

• Kid oriented results

• Sleep mode

• Active monitoring

List down key metrics for success

• Average no of searches per kid

• CTR

• Average click depth

• Zero result percentage

• Average time spent

Blocking out keywords could potentially block out useful or educational content

Clarifying questions:

1. Are there any reasons why existing search engines on the market not working for kids under 14 yo?
2. Are there any specific objectives I shall keep in mind while designing this product? such as to offer parenting control while enabling the youth to explore and learn?
3. There are age groups of 0-5, 5-8, 8-10, 10-14 which age group under 14 year old are we targeting as user?
   1. Do these kids have any physical or other limitations that I need to be aware of?
4. What platform will this search engine be used for? Mobile device, Web based?

Let's assume the interviewer confirms that this search engine is for 10-14 year old kid without any additional constraints to be considered. Mostly used in web based setting on a computer or mobile web browser.

Propose a structure:

Who is the user, why do they need this product:

1. Homework help:
   1. Interested to learn more about specific topics
   2. Interested to find images and video content for topics of interest
   3. Looking for topics of interest on a specific subject
2. Search and download content such as music, games, puzzles
3. Search and learn more about sports, specific activity

Existing Search engines comparison: 

1.  offers search engine capabilities, user profile creation, no parental control/ view.
2. Doesn't offer safe search option, the queries are not indexed with the young audience in consideration.

Gaps/pain points?

1. There is no age appropriate content based search engine available
2. There is no search engine with parental control
3. Existing search engine does not offer capabilities to keep young audience engaged on the platform.

Identify primary/secondary users:

Kids, parents, teachers

Core use cases:

Search engine that enables parental control

Search engine that offers curated result and age appropriate content

Search engine that is fun, colorful and will improve engagement for kids

Secondary use cases:

Parents that want visibility in kid's safety while they browse online content

Teachers that want to direct kids to research on specific topics

Let's focus on the Kids as that is the primary user here:

Solution 1:

search engine that requires use profile Parent>child

Offers curated search based on the profile, interests

Algorithm will show kids results based on the history, learns over time to increase engagement

Solution 2:

Search engine that has curated content for search results-- Age appropriate search indexing, audited material, references

Safe search already in place, no need for additional parental supervision

Shows trending search items for similar age group

Solution 3:

 Search engine where parents can configure the safe search criteria for their kids

Algorithm will show kids results based on the history, learns over time to increase engagement

Provides a summary that offers parents a view of the child's browsing history

Summarize:

I propose solution 3 with slight modification , a search engine that offers keyword based search functionality, the content/results will be curated for children for relevancy, age appropriate content based on the settings. A summarized view is nice to have for parent's peace of mind.

Success metrics:

Engagement: How much time kids spend using it?

How many kids are using it?

Clarification  

1- Age brackets: If we want to enable searches, we need audio or text input, can we take an age group of 5-14 so that we ensure that children are able to read, write and speak what they want? -Yes
2- Any assumptions about which place these children come from and what language they speak? - India, Hindi
3- Who are the buyers - Is this search engine specifically targetted towards schools where these children would use them, or do we want to search engine which is kind of open to all in general - Open to all
4- Any specific platform for usage - Phone, tablet, desktop. - Phone
5- Product goal - It's a new product, so first we should try to see whether our product works with the chosen customer segment or not. Metrics should be around this
6- What type of seach engine - Text search, image search, video search - Text

Let me structure my thought and then present it to you

Structure 

I would want to go in this sequence-   
1- People: Are there any other participants along with children?
2- User goals: Goals for all the participants
3- Place of product - Task of places or devices as to how the product is downloaded and used.
4- Use cases and user journey
[Take an existing search engine as a base. We could look at a unique user journey as well, but for now I am going by the existing seach engine functionality]
5- Pain points
6- Solution to pain areas 
7- Pricing - Basis this there could be inputs to the product
8- Awareness
9- Matrices to measure the success rate on (Pilot launch)
# Usage rate # User feedback # Repeat usage 

1- People 
Children - consumer 
Parents/ Guardian - If children are at home 
Wardon - If children are at boarding school - Not considering now

2- User Goals
Children - Search with ease for things they are looking for.

Parents/guardians - Enable children to search and view results in a safe and secure environment. They may take the decision on the search engine on their child's phone. They would want to ensure that there are no obscene results or child doesn't get into online fraud or any activity that could harm them. They would also want to keep an eye on what they are searching for. 

3- Place 
Product - Mobile App 
Download - Play store, and apple store 
Usage - Phone
Control (Optional) - parent's phone 

4- Use cases and user journey 
Children can have these use cases
A-Search a topic related to study
B-Search social needs - Social media, school profile
C- Searching for videos 
D- Installation - (Not considering this for now)

Okay, the use cases look similar. Let's look at the user journey 
4.1- Thought of search [Outside the search engine]
4.2 -Go to search engine on phone
4.3- Search input 
4.4 -Search
4.5- Choose one from the search results
4.6- View 
4.7- Check other search results
4.8- Findings and close [Outside the search engine]

Parents:
Use cases
4.9-Set safe search on 
4.10 -Monitoring

Not going into user journey 

Pain points

P 4.3 -Chindren may be just learning language and writing, so they would probably prefer voice over text search (Assumption whihc can be checked with data). Howver, Voice input is not prominent as text search currently.
P4.4 - Okay
P4.5 - Very difficult to choose the right options 
P4.6- Can't do anything here as it's website view
P4.7 -Very difficult to choose the right options 
P4.8 - Difficult to validate or confirm if they got the right information.

Solution
S4.3 - Voice feature could be more prominent than text. And keep voice search by deaulft based on user's past interactiosn.

S4.5.1 -Have a diffeernt alogoritham for children search 
A- Prioritize websites which are specific to chilrens's need like studies, hobbies, knowledge, kids sports, kids clothes, kids TV shows etc.
B- Prioritized websites which children found helpful.
C-Parse children search query keeping in mind that they may not be very direct or they might add lengthy text.
S.4.5.2-Show search results summary which are easily understood by children. 
S.4.5.3- When seach queries are ambiguous, tell users based on past childnre's search, what they must be looking for.

S4.8 - Can't think of a way for validation now.

S4.9- Parents are worried for safe search, so let make the entire search entire safe search as it is specifically for children. 

S4.10- Parents should be able to set monitor email protected by password, where all search history, usage statistics can be sent regularly.

Prioritization - 
We can prioritize all the solution points based on their need and our estimates for thier effectiveness.
S.4.5 is seems to be the most impactful change.

Metrics - [checking effectiveness of the tool] 
A- Average number of queries to complete a search - will tell how effective the s.4.5 alogoritham change was 
B- Number of sessions per user - This number should increase with time, this would indicate that children are not getting trusted with the search experience.

So to summaries, we made certain assumptions about the search engine, identified the needs of children and parents, found search issues talking current search engine as base, suggested a few solution where alogoritham change was the major point and then listed a few metrics to check the success of the seach engine.
 

Q: How would you design a web search engine for children below 14 years old?
Clarify a few points here - Which geography do these children belong to and what would they use the search engine for primarily
Assuming that the search engine is being built for a global audience and children would primarily need it for educational purposes let's try and design it

What are the current use cases (not necessarily the ideal ones) of a search engine for children below 14 yrs of age:
1. Education - To learn something, for creating a project, completing an assignment, preparing for a GK Quiz, understanding history and geography
2. Entertainment - Search for games online, cartoon characters, Actors etc
3. Sports - Search for sports events, players, videos on their favourite sport etc
4. Art and Craft - Search for DIY projects like best out of waste etc

Alternatives and Problems with them:
1. Google/Yahoo/Bing: All the above-mentioned use cases can be realised using a normal Google search engine, but there are stark issues in doing this
Problems:
1. The internet is full of abusive, adult and dangerous content. If the child is searching on his own (without supervision) and gets across any of these contents, the impacts can be severe
The Child can get across an adult video, some violent videos, and some graphics not meant for a child
2. The children might be redirected to social media pretty easily, opening up a completely new world of distractions for them
3. It shows a lot of Ads, especially Shopping ads which the child could visit and even make expensive purchases
4. Google search's result format/ranking may not be apt for Children. It lists news, social media, maps, videos etc which might not be of much use to Children

Solution:
Design a Search engine that:
1. Restricts the unwanted content (mentioned above) in the search result - no adult content, violence, social media and shopping
2. Ad-free (More on this in the revenue model section)
3. One that has a result page and searches home page designed in a manner to promote education, interactivity and engagement:

A. The search page should have tiles below the search bar for Quizzes, Geography, History, Craft, Sports etc. Clicking on these would open a pandora's box of engaging activities for the Child to have fun and learn at the same time

B. The Search result page should have the meaning of the search term (if it is some adjective), useful educational videos and articles related to that term and an option to directly drag-drop/copy something from the result onto a small notepad area. The Child should be able to filter the results based on a list of categories mentioned above

4. Voice and Multi-language search along with Search suggestions

MVP can include:
1. Unwanted content Restriction
2. Ad-Free
3. The result page would have a filter for categories

Revenue Model:
Two Sources of Revenue:
1. A monthly/quarterly/yearly subscription model for individual Children
2. A monthly/quarterly/yearly subscription model for schools and other educational institutes - These entities can use the search engine as the default one in their computer lab systems.

Core Performance, Health and Revenue Metrics to track:

1. Number of Search queries per hour/day/week/month - This would be our North Star Metric
2. Percentage Searches that gave at least 5 results
3. Percentage of Successful searches. Successful search - user interacted with at least one search result
4. Bounce rate (100- Percentage successful searches)
5. Avg Session Time per user
6. Number of activities performed per day/week/month - Quizzes played, DIY videos viewed etc
7. Total monthly/yearly revenue
8. Revenue Share between individuals and institutes

Persona

1. Tech savvy

2. Voice assistants on watches, smart home hubs

3. Low attention span - needs to be super performant

4. Exposed social media a lot

5. Very aware of social issues 

6. Privacy focussed

7. Parents want oversight 

8. Has access to smartphone

Use cases

1. Latest music

2. Research school projects - science

3. Research for Art projects

4. Latest news

5. Local news

6. Sports - events

Pain points - Let’s pick a science project use case.

1. social media

   1. Not enough information for the objective of learning

   2. Not Catered towards learning

   3. Not Privacy conscious

2. Traditional search engines 

   1. don’t have the social networking element

   2. No guidance on whether something worked or what else they can look for

Solutions

1. Digital assistant: Interactive search engine through smart home hubs - Based on age and intent, ask questions and send information to their phones so that they can check it out.  Provide ability to like or dislike the links and learn from that. 

2. Web/Mobile : Youtube + Instagram : Design something where they can get video and image results with info on whether their friends have liked that content. 

3. Guided collaborative search: Curated list based on some key questions about the project. Get feedback on whether it worked if not ask more questions. Have the ability to share the curated list with a friend and have them provide feedback on the links shared

Prioritization perspective

1. Solution 1 : Easy to build, just need to create the profile and add in guides on follow up questions, maximum impact coz it’s easy to use, existing tech could work on phones

2. Soution 2: Will need to build using components from search engine and youtube and build the social media element or integrations with social media. Maximum impact because you are capturing the social media searches back in the search engine

3. Solution 3: New way of searching together.. Hard to build and may not be real time. Less impactful

Short term - Solution 1 - Guided search on digital assistant 

Long term - Solution 2- Video/Image focused search with social media integration for feedback on the links

• What? Web search engine enables users to efficienty access new and relevant topics and content. Indexing and caching are key. 

   

• Search for knowledge and ideas vs Search for practical tips on how to do something (the latter could be taken care of by Youtube videos, etc.)

• How can children compare results and decide which is relevant or high quality? Or should the results be crowdsourcing voted by parents as part of the knowledge graph?

• Who/Why children? Many ways to consumer content, habit forming years - short video streaming apps such as TikTok or IG are really dominating the next generation's attention span, as well as direct messaging apps with fancy effects...

• Any particular note about neurodiversity inclusion? Perhaps I will start by designing a solution for the majority of children, while being mindful of neurodiversity in the solution phase down the road...

• Summary: enable children to search for and access age-appropriate, high quality information and ideas from around the world with efficiency

• Business goal: once children (and parents) see value in this, this likely translates to increased engagement 

• Metrics: # successful searches, time to successful search (counter metric: clicks before finding the right article or information)
• Considerations: privacy, anti-addiction | ethical design, neurodiversity inclusion

• Primary users: children (by age group, or more importantly by literacy level, while considering learning modalities later in solution design...)

  • Reading Comprehension: Low vs Mid or High

  • Listening Comprehension: Low vs Mid or High

• Secondary users: parental guardians, service providers

• Will prioritize children with mid to high literacy level - more likely to use search engine and benefit from the content - need new information to supplement learning, which translates to bigger user value or impact

Clarification questions: 

What kind of company are we? Do we have access to all resources to do this?

Are we the first to release this in the market? If yes, I would assume the business goal is to capture market share and get as many users as we can to use the product.

What is the product? Allow children to search information across the internet in an easy and accessible way

Users:

- Children below the age of 14: They are the primary users of the product and will use it to see search results.

- Parents/ Teachers: They are either moderators of the browser or can have separate profiles and contribute to the content students see (Eg: School can post homework and notifications)

Since we want to capture immediate market share, we will focus on our primary user segment - Children

Use cases: These are the following use cases for children:

- Searching information on the internet is not efficient: It is very difficult to parse through all the search results and see what could be useful

- Removal of explicit adult content from search results

- Collaborate better with friends on school projects

- Get notifications about school (Since this would also involve treating school as a user, we can reduce the priority on this use case)

Possible Solutions:

- First I would like to create a user profile, using the name and email address of the child/parent so that we can track how many users we have on the platform

- Make information easier to find. We could do this by prioritizing academic journals and research/ authentic information first in the search results. Once we have collected information on users, we can use that to show children "X% of users from your school found this information helpful" and rank search results accordingly.

Also, create separate sections for results like academic journals, discussion blogs, homework answers, interactive media, and categorize search results that make it easier for students to find what they are looking for.

- Use AI/ML to remove explicit content from the search results. We could later extend this to allowing parents to control the search results visible

- Create a time tracker that shows children how much time they spent on educational vs social media websites. This will help them monitor and track their time better.

- Making collaboration on projects easier by adding a side chat bar within the browser where children can easily drag and drop content into the chat that they want to share. This could also mean selecting a line in an article and dragging it to the chat window. This would automatically paste all the information like the article link, the highlighted text, the author, and the popularity of that article in the chat.

Prioritizing solutions: (1 least, 5 highest)

Hence I would prioritize the 2 features:

Create user profile

Search results

Time tracker (quick win)

Metrics:

Some metrics that I would use to track the success of this feature are:

- How many unique users do we have on the platform

- Avg search queries per user

- 7/30 days retention for each user 

Drawbacks:

- Prioritizing search results by showing links that have been accessed by other students may create a bias in the long run and some useful content might get pushed back in the search results because students never accessed it initially.

- The time tracker will not be able to track time correctly if a browser tab is open and the student is not at his desk. We could extend this later to add a camera to see if students are present in front of the desk and are focused.

I would start off by focussing on "Engagement" as my goal since this is a new product and I want to make sure we have enough market penetration and then later on focus on retention and monetization once the product is famous and awareness about the product is acquired within the child population and their parents.

I'll divide the User groups and four categories based on age group and then go on defining what kind of acitivities they generally engage in. 

Based on the classification above, I would go for age group 13-14 yrs since it has a lot of potential for a web search engine to show content for these kids that will be useful for them academically as well as personal development.

Pain Points of these kids:

Solution:

Based on the above table, I would focus on the first 2 pain points and cater the search engine to show content as per age group (uesr input) and tagging it.

Basic Features for MVP:

1. Input use age group as the first step.
2. Show results based on the page ranking and the age group entered.
3. If a child enters inappropriate keywords, block the results from showing based on the tagging.
4. Suggest recommendations for similar items searched.
5. Use intent based searching.

How would you design a web search engine for children below 14 years old?

Clarify the scope of the question

The pre-requisite would be for a kid to have some level of basic computer skills.

Are we focusing in the US or globally? Say US

Can I fairly assume it can be in English? Yes

It is for the Phone or PCs? Say I pick on PCs

What is the goal?

Potential goals of creating this web browser—

1. Children appropriate content
2. Help in their research for their homework
3. Socialize with their friends, see what is popular to search for people in that age group.
4. Respecting Privacy and prevention of fraud

What are user segments?

1. Middle school – 10 to 14
2. Junior School- less than 10

I would like to focus on students in Middle school who have a fair understanding of using computers more independently.

What are potential User Needs?

From a guardian perspective, the features that are crucial is content appropriate for children and protection of privacy.

1. The needs of a student—Topics that they want to research to help them academically/education material
2. Collaborate on projects with other people in the same age group
3. Socialize with friends

Prioritize user need

1. Education needs can be met
2. Child appropriate content
3. Protection of personal information

What are the solutions?

1. In search results prioritize education materials coming from websites like Udemy, Coursera, educational magazines, business schools
2. An inbuilt feature that can help connect with student who are doing similar projects
3. Access to most websites but content only appropriate for kids
4. Allow for parental controls.

Evaluate the solutions

I would go with 1,3,4 with the initial launch and add on to it as we progress to version 2

Give a high level of how the product will look

The look of the product would be like a generic search engine with a beta added to its name. The algorithms behind that have to be defined so that it serves the needs of the customer (point1,3) and their guardians.

Goal

We want to build a search engine for kids

We want to make sure it is safe ? 

We are mainly focused on what features it should include and making it safe for kids

We are not focused on growing revenue / monetization considerations at this stage

Personas 

• Parents of kids - They want to ensure their kids have a safe experience on the internet and want to control what they are able to see and search
• Schools - Kids use laptops in school so they want to ensure that kids are using this or have this installed on their school machines
• Children - Actual users of the search engine - will be using this for web surfing. However, as they are not decision makers they are our secondary users

User Needs

• Given that parents are the main decision makers for this I would like to stick to that user persona and come up with a list of features for them
  • Device Controls
    • Ability to set as default search engine on the device (laptop, mobile)
    • Ability to prevent anyone else from changing default search / pwd protection
  • Search controls 
    • Search of restricted categories and websites turned off by details
    • Ability to view a log of search queries made on the device 
    • Ability to customize the search categories that they want to remove

Prioritization

• I am going to rank each feature using the RICE framework - R - Reach, I - Impact, C - Confidence, E - Effort
  • Device Controls
    • Default engine set  (R:10), (I:3), (C:1), (E:3) —> 10
    • Password Controls (R:6), (I:2), (C:0.8), (E:3) —> 3.2
  • Search Controls
    • Restricted Categories (R:10), (I:3), (C:1), (E:1) —> 30
    • Search logs (R:9), (I:3), (C:0.8), (E:2) —> 10.8
    • Custom block list (R:3), (I:2), (C:0.5), (E:2) —> 1.5
• Based on the above and to build a minimal viable product I think we need three things
  • Setting our search engine as a default search engine
  • Providing parents logs of searches that are being made i.e. search history
  • Searching list blocking I.e. having a simple default search category for kids based on age (like under 8, under 14)

Solutions

• Default search engine
  • Integrate app with different devices and have the ability to set it as default search engine 
• Logs
  • Record all logs searched on the device
  • Send reports of logs to admin (parents) on a weekly basis
  • Allow admin to log into the dashboard and search for logs on demand
  • Get the admin to block certain categories on demand and these get added to the block list
• Block categories
  • This is an easy option of parents to choose certain blocking types based on age
  • Block categories mapped by us and stored
  • We constantly refine based on machine learning i.e. identifying what searches are blocked in what region by parents having children on a specific age

Metrics 

Key metrics to track growth in the early stage

• DAUs
• Search Query volume

Other Metrics

Acquisition

• No of signups for our search engine

Activation

• # of profiles created
• # of users setting us as the default search engine
• Referrals

Retention

• Search volume
• Search reports/log views
• Modifications in 
• Stickiness (DAU/MAU)

Design a web search engine for kids under 14 year old

Clarifying Questions :

1. Are we talking about web search engine only for kids or it can be generic ? Consider it's for kids

2. Is there a particular age group under 14 which we are considering ? Up to u , I would take 10-14

3. Any specific goal in mind ? To create user friendly and knowledgable experience for kids.

User groups and their Needs and Pain points

Children (10-14) : They are mostly from the urban background where children get access to the mobile devices and apps pretty early in their age. 

Needs : They mostly look for the easier search of content. Contents with visual appeal is more attractive to them.

Pain points : Not really sure of what to search . Finds difficult to select the appropriate one from the listings.

Parents : Mostly working parents in tier 1 and 2 cities who are tech savvy. Due to their busy schedules often looking for their child’s development via technology.

Needs : Want their children to be responsible while searching and viewing the content. They look for their child to gain knowledge through this.

Pain Points : Parents are worried for their children spending longer time with mobile and tablets.

Feel scared if their children are watching malicious content.

Prioritized User Group: Parents

Solutions for Prioritized users :

1. Secured and malicious free listings to be shown to children
2. Smart content category selection based on age : Parents should be able to set different categories in the list of categories to be shown as recommended categories in the home page.
3. Tracking the web search history through their device : Parents should be able to track the search history to be sure of the searches their kids are doing.
4. Setting up learning goals : Parents can set daily learning goals and based on that search engine can suggest customized content like some knowledgable games or videos to watch. The same can be shown to kids in the daily goals section in the search app.

Prioritizing Solutions

Trade Offs : 

1. Accuracy factor in showing the customized content and recommendations for children based on their interest factor.
2. Kids friendly content can be compromised due to the models being used.

Summary :

Design for a web search application for kids in tier 1 and 2 cities in age group of 10-14 years. Working to give a more delightful and secure experience to the parent in selecting the right content through smarter means.

In MVP version of the application, would be taking up these features :