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How will you design a mobile version of MS Word and ensure real time collaboration within this app?

Asked at Microsoft
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Clarifications:-
  1. By this it means- that the desktop application will sync with the mobile version of the MS word when connected to the internet, apart from this the MS word application on desktop can work in offline mode(as works currently) -> is my understanding correct?
  2. Since it is meant for mobile version, any constraints that u want me to keep in mind? No constraints
  3. Real time collaboration : means the participants can edit and modify the doc at the same pt of time.. similar to google docs? Is my understanding correct? Yes.
 
Product description:-
      MS word is a software application which is more of an on premise kind of application i.e. it is installed on the user's device. It provides word processing capabilities thus allows users to create, format documents of any share and size. Exists in the market for quite some time.
Since it is no premise, the documents created are present on the user's device and not on cloud.
Current collaboration process:-
  1. ​User(author) adds comments to his copy of the document
  2. Uses some tool to share the document copy with the collaborators. (tool - email, upload on dropbox, one drive etc)
  3. Collaborators will each download their copy of the sent document, review comments and then share back the reviewed document.
  4. The author will then have to review each of the received copy and then merge and create a final one.
So basically, in current process - a document instance is stored on user's device. When user shares the document with other users, he is creating another instance of the document and that is being shared with each user.
So it is not one copy over which collaboration is happening.
 
Goal: Now our goal is to create a version of MS word for mobile which provides real time collaboration.
 
User segments:
  1. ​Professionals : creating documents for office work and need to collaborate with fellow colleagues to complete the document.
  2. Students: creating documents for their school, college project work and need to collaborate with fellow students for group tasks
  3. Personal user: creating documents for ur own personal tasks , might require collaboration with friends or spouse for usecases like planning a trip.. planning an invite etc.
Prio of user segment:
Now out of these segments, most relevant segment would be professionals since:-
  1. ​Some one would want to access documents on mobile if they have time crunch and are on the move.. like travelling for client meetings and thus on the way want to review the doc.. add last minute touches to it... something less relavant for students or personal segment.
  2. Size of the user case: over here professionals and student both are big segments.
Now based on above 2 pts would like to focus on professionals.
Pain pts of professionals as per the goal:-
  1. It is difficult to read comments added by collaborators in their versions of the documents and then create a final version. (Cumbersone process, possible to leave certain comments)
    1. Severity: high
    2. Reach: high
  2. It is difficult to add review comments on a mobile device
    1. Severity: med.
    2. Reach : med.. some people might have high end devices.
  3. I don't know when the other party will review the comments and update the document.
    1. Severity: med
    2. Reach: med
Prio of pain pts:-
 
Severity of problem:
Reach of the problem:
 
So lets focus on pain pt 1:-
Solutions:-
 
  1. ​Syncing documents on the server when the user is online and adding comments (text comments) and tagging users on those comments
    1. Impact: med since it does not guarantee real time collaboration and user needs to go through the comments, there might be to and fro if u don't understand one particular reviewer comment.
    2. Effort: med.
  2. Providing a collaboration interface (user can chat, voice call) with real time screen sharing, where users can view the document on their mobile devices and then discuss on each pt at the same time and one person can modify the content and create a final version.
    1. Impact: high. real time collaboration, collaborator can clarify their queries and thus effectively create a final document.
    2. Effort : high
 
Prio based on impact and effort and thus would choose option 2.
Imp product attributes for this :-
 
  1. ​Speed: real time chat, voice collaboration
  2. Bandwidth: real time chat, voice call and screen share
  3. Accuracy in editing content: as involves speech to voice conversion
 
Technical design for option 2:-
 
image

 

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Clarification

  1. Is there a restriction on the ecosystem?

  2. Does it need to work for outside collaborators ie non-employees

  3. Do we need to consider customers on self-host plans?

 

Target audience

  1. Professionals in transit who want to use the time to catch up on their work

  2. Review of documents in a more relaxed context eg on couch

  3. Multiscreen view of documents

 

Selected audience: Professionals in transit

 

Painpoints

  1. Privacy considerations

    1. How do you keep the documents safe?

    2. Restricted access to documents outside office space

  2. Device capability restrictions

    1. The phone may not be able to handle heavy graphics

    2. The phone may lack the capability to store multiple heavy documents

  3. Limited input devices

    1. Small screens may make targets hard to get to

    2. Formatting will be hard without guides such as print stops, rulers, orientation guides

 

Solutions

  1. Implement encrypted database solution independent of the device to host documents

  2. Provide text to speech capabilities to ease consumption of long documents

  3. Generate mobile-optimized versions of the documents suitable for reading and scrolling

  4. Provide a “Todo” functionality so you can add notes to your document for action later

    1. Eg  clipping an interesting article to the document

    2. Writing rough draft of a paragraph to be cleaned and merged to main document later

 

Ease impact scoring

 

Easy to implement

Hard to implement

High impact

Text to speech capabilities


 

Encrypted database solution

 

“Todo” functionality

Low impact

 

Mobile-optimized versions of the documents


 

Success metrics

  1. Time spent on the app

    1. Because the aim is primarily for consumption, we expect a lot more time to be spent on the app

  2. Percentage of customers who have both mobile and full versions

    1. Shows if the app is fit for its purpose

  3. Engagement with generated artifacts while having access to the full version

    1. Demonstrates value as a tool for capturing ideas

  4. Organization adoption

    1. Shows trust in encryption technology

 

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Things you did well

1.        Framework  - You are clearly using a framework to answer the question.  Much of my feedback will be about how to use the framework to improve your answer.

2.       Metrics – you have defined a set of metrics

My Framework (based on lessons from this site)

1.       Ask Clarifying questions

2.       Set Constraints – in this case they told us it was for mobile

3.       Set a Goal – mostly for product improvement questions – in this case they set the goal of engagement through collaboration

4.       Identify users (persona)

5.       Pick one user – use some criteria – example: I’m picking professionals in transit because they have the most need for a mobile version of Word

6.        Identify user pain points – (think about the user journey to help keep the pain points  user related)

7.       Pick one pain point

8.       Come up with 3-4 solutions to the pain point – one moon shot

9.       Rank solutions using RIE (reach, Impact, Effort)

10.   Pick one Solution

11.   Define Metrics of Success

12.   Identify Limitations and or countermetrics

Areas of Improvement

1.       Ask who, what, when, where why questions – on this platform please provide mock answers to your own questions (its ok if the answers are “you decide” – but then you need to decide)

2.       Persona – audience – “Review of documents in a more relaxed context eg on couch” and “Multiscreen view of documents”  aren’t audience or persona.  Examples:

a.       Professionals

                                                               i.      Remote workers

                                                             ii.      Travelers

b.       Students

 

3.       Pain points – the goal was collaboration (many of your pain points are unrelated to collaboration)

a.       Some of my mobile pain points related to collaboration

                                                               i.      The screen is too small to see both the text, comments and red lines of a collaborative work doc.

                                                             ii.      I don’t know when another user is actively working on the collaborative document

                                                           iii.      I want a way of communicating with the collaborator that isn’t just text based

4.       Pick one pain point to focus on

5.       Solutions – your solutions where not related to collaboration which was the main goal of the question

6.       Solutions – your solutions didn’t focus on collaboration and felt like features that already exist as MVP for Mobile word

7.       Pick one solution using criteria

 

 

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