How would you help couples to spend time meaningfully with each other?

Clarify

1. Spend time meaningfully- where? online or offline? Both

2. Are these couples in a relationship - dating, married? Yes

3. Any specific relationship? Up to you

4. Relationship - long distance or short? Up to you

5. Helping these couples -> create a feature on the app or Facebook.com? Or create a separate new app? -> up to you

6. Any constraints (time, resource, cost) -> no

Goals

Mission - keep people socially connected

Vision - make facebook a one-stop shop for people to use the platform to discover their connections and whatever that interests them

Why is Facebook interested - Relationships are all about connecting with your partner at all levels. This means spending quality and meaningful time together, balancing choices and developing a mutual respect and understanding. This factor compliments Facebook’s mission of keeping people connected. Facebook wants to create a feature that enables its users to be able to spend quality time with their partners, which if works correctly, keeps its users engaged, retain them and monetize the feature in the future.

Business goal of this feature - more engagement (short term), retention (med), and monetization (long term). For the exercise , I'll focus on the engagement

Situation - What does meaningful time mean or how couples try spending their time together:

• Spending time talking to each other so that they can connect at every level

• Spending time doing activities - online or offline - plan movies (watch at home or go outside), go on trips, do adventure sports, dine at restaurants, cook etc.

• Doing projects together - learning, searching houses, building their homes

   

User Segments

Individuals:

1. Couples in a new relationship (0-1) - all age groups

2. Couples who have been together for some time (2-5 years) - all age groups

3. Couples who have been together for quite some time (6-15) - all age groups

4. Couples who have been together for a very long time > 15 years - all age groups

Businesses:

1. Local restaurants who want to give unique experience to couples

2. Online and offline gift shops

3. Businesses providing Online and offline activities for couples such as movies, adventure sports, shopping

Prioritized: couple in a new relationship 

Reason: while all couples, in any age group, no matter how long they have been in a relationship need to spend meaningful time, couples in a new relationship need to spend quality time to know each other better, likes, dislikes, behaviors etc. This builds a foundation of a strong relationship. Hence, they have the most need because the more they can spend meaningful time together, they can build a new relationship. In other words, it will create an impact on its users and be valued. Solution for this user segment can also be extended to other users in the “Individual group”

Persona

Addison (33) and Jackie (35) have recently started dating. They’re both working professionals, stay in the same area, and usually spend the weekend together. 

Addison - is an extrovert, loves adventure sports, hiking, going out and dressing up

Jackie - an introvert, likes going out too, is adventurous

Let’s say their idea of meaningful time is doing activities together

Journey and Pain points (PP)

1. They search for options together - 

   1. PP1: different choices on what to do - should we hike, go for biking, go for fine dining, go on a small road trip

   2. PP2: different choices on where can we go

   3. PP3: mood changes

2. Make the bookings

3. Visit the places:

   1. PP1: wait times could be long

   2. PP2: safety of the place

   3. PP3: either of the two may not enjoy the place in the end

4. Click pictures

5. Share the experience with friends on FB, Insta

6. Review and rate the experience

7. May or may not visit the same place again

Prioritized: 1.a. Exploring common interests is one of the challenging things to do. Finding a common activity that both can enjoy and spend meaningful time with each other. Couples spend a lot of time figuring out activities since there are so many, and then you want to keep each other happy, respect each other’s choices. It can get overwhelming. Finding a solution to this user need will help users in spending quality time with their partners, and better the solution works, it will create more value and impact , hence, drive more engagement and retention in the future

Solutions and Prioritization (Prioritization - let's score them 1-10, 10 being highest)

1. Personality based activity predictor - predict common activities to do based on personalities of each

   1. Reach: M - people may or may not be comfortable in sharing their personality traits, or

   2. Impact: M - the predicted activities may not be exciting to them

   3. Effort: H - needs a lot of AI advancement

2. Relationship Guru Platform - ask a Relationship Expert on where to go for quality time

   1. Reach: M - couples may or not may not be comfortable in discussing it with a third person (unknown) at this stage of a relationship

   2. Impact: M - ideas given by the expert may not be selected by the couple

   3. Effort: M

3. Decisionometer - An Autogenerated decision matrix that populates various decision making factors based on the question asked and choices by the user; weightages to each decision making factor and options given by the each user and couples compare the value they give to those factors and choices

   1. Reach: M -> weighting each option and factors could be tiring, so couple may drop out

   2. Impact: H -> it’s data-driven and objective; considers each aspect of the couple’s choice

   3. Effort: H -> it may be a complicated design

4. “Choices'' game - in line with “Who wants to be a millionaire”. Randomly generate activities and each of the couple selects their choice and the mutual choice is the right answer. Every user earns badges that can be displayed on their profile, earn Facebook points which can later be used for monetization

   1. Reach: H -> games can be quick and fun. Without giving much personal information, this game can be played

   2. Impact: H -> a good way to know each other’s choices, increases bonding between couples; since it’s playing game online, they engage more with the feature and with each other

   3. Effort: M

Prioritize: #4

Feature ideas

1. A “Let’s Play” screen

2. A small questionnaire

   1. When are you planning for: today, tomorrow, date?

   2. Local or distant?

   3. Any occasion?

   4. General mood?

   5. Any specific category (choice of categories)

3. Displays 4 choices -> each user selects a choice

   1. If match -> ask “will you go -> yes or no

      1. If yes -> display choice selected, share on wall 

      2. If no, rematch

   2. If no match after say 10 questions, prompt to revisit the questions

       

Tradeoff/Risks

1. Risks: if the couple gets no matches at all, they may churn

2. Trade Offs: 

   1. each of the couple may not be on facebook

   2. Data security 

   3. Privacy of the user

   4. They may still go with another choice or option even after a match

       

Success metrics

1. # of questions per user per session

2. # of “yes” matches per user per session

3. Time spent per user per session

4. NPS

5. # posts per user per session

6. # comments and reactions per person per session

7. North Star - # of “yes” matches per user per session

8. Counter metrics -> # of rematches per user per session

9. Guard rail: Number of times the “prompt to visit questions” was displayed per user per session