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Design a radio alarm clock for the next generation.

Asked at Microsoft
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Assumptions

 

  1. What do we mean by radio? - A radio is a system that plays a sound through a supporting mechanism (streams, radio frequencies) 

  2. What do we mean by alarm clock here? - A system that alerts on the basis of time 

  3. Assuming next generation means children & teens.

  4. I am also assuming the goal is here to improve the time management experience and also how alarm clock can be much more than just boring wake up alert machine

 

User Segments

 

  1. Infants

  2. Babies - between infants and playschool 

  3. Children who are in play school

  4. Children who are studying in school

  5. Teens in school

  6. Teens in college

  7. Parents

  8. Friends

  9. Schools/Colleges/Activity Centers

 

Grouping user segments

 

  1. People who want to be alerted

  2. People who are schedulers and planning things

  3. Device and radio stream providers on which alerts are planned and managed


 

For further discussion, I would like focus on schedulers (people who plan the events for the alert) because we are talking about teens and children and mostly their plans and activities for which they need to be alerted are planned by other user such as parents, teachers, coaches etc.

 

Understanding user needs

 

Any users have typically two primarily group of needs functional needs and emotional needs, so let me try to figure out both sides of the spectrum.


 

Now let’s look at some of the functional needs

 

  1. Setup the alarm with the right configuration of time, frequency, intensity and associated tune

  2. Cross device support - Alarm can be configured and can also can be played if needed on multiple devices

  3. Need positive affirmation on whether the activity for which alarm was set has started

  4. Plan advance schedules

 

Emotional Needs

  1. Should not shock the end user.

  2. The alert experience should be smooth and engaging


 

For further discussion, I would like to focus upon positive affirmation of activity completion (need 3) as the primary focus as it will drive our main goal of time management a lot and is also a major problem in devices we have today also.


 

Possible Solutions

 

  1. A notification experience, triggered once the user who needs to be alarmed switches off the alarm

  2. A push to talk mechanism as part of the alarm mechanism


 

I would like prioritise push to talk mechanism as the impact to goal of time management is high as the user will be speaking the scheduler and will provide active confirmation of activity start.


 

Features

 

  1. Ability to start the conversation with button push

  2. Ability to identify the intended end user to receive the confirmation (in this case device of the scheduler).

  3. Ability to traverse the information over internet

  4. Ability to turn off the alarm

  5. Offline sync

  6. Ability to replay messages as a part of checklist process. [ Sometimes it may happen that the scheduler is busy and may want to look at the message a little later]


 

Prioritisation: For MVP, I would like to prioritise on the basis must have and good to have

 

  1. Must Have

  2. Must Have

  3. Must Have

  4. Must Have

  5. Good to Have

  6. Good to Have


 

I would also to like propose to create it as a service to different hardware and software alarm clock providers considering that would help scale the usage more.


 

Metrics: 

 

I would like to use the HEART framework 

 

Happiness - Ratings feedback after a week of usage

Engagement - Number of alarms set per user

Adoption - Number of users who scheduled alarms using the service

Retention - Number of users using it daily

 

Tasks - Number of conversations happening 

 
@bijan : Would love to hear some feedback on this
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Things you did well

1.        Persona – you define a solid list of Personas.  Personally, I would have kept the list shorter

a.       Infants – (as a parent our main rule was never wake a sleeping baby)

b.       Children

c.       Teens

d.       Parents

2.       Grouping the user segments – This isn’t one of my steps – but I appreciate that you looked for commonalities across the lists.  You ended up with schedulers.

3.       Pick a pain point based on some criteria – you picked affirmation of activity completion and provided some explanation

4.       Metrics – I like the metrics framework

Things you could improve

1.        User Journey / Pain points – you skipped to needs – but don’t list pain points

a.       As a father with kids across a range of age spectrums some of my pain points include (partial list)

                                                               i.      It is hard to get a unified view of all their activities

                                                             ii.      As their activities change in real time, I don’t get change notifications – example my son’s football practices are supposed to run till 6:30pm.  However, when I get there, he is never ready.  I live about 10 minutes for the school I need notice when they go to the locker room. 

                                                           iii.      Some of my kids share a room but have different schedules – its painful when they wake each other up when they have different schedules. 

2.       Solutions – I want 3-4 solutions with one being a moon shot.  I would like your solutions to be little free-standing ideas.  Think of this as 3-4 mini elevator pitches. 

a.       Example – Family schedule watches.  We identified that not all kids in my family have a smart phone and we identified that we need to schedule a large group of people and keep them al in sync.  Solution one is a set of family watches with coordinated calendars.  The watches can have different modes (permissions) for parents and children.  The watches link together a provide an updated single point of truth for scheduling.  Some of the features of the watches could be real time notifications.  For example if my Son’s football practice is ruing late he can simply signal in his watch and notifies the right group members. 

3.       Pick a solution based on criteria – once you have a list of solutions apply RIE (Reach, Impact, Effort) and pick one.  I personally shy away from a list of features and stay at the elevator pitch level.

Things to think about

1.        Assumptions – while you make a series of assumptions, I would instead ask a series of clarifying questions.  When I ask clarifying questions, I like to make sure I fully understand the question and I also try to start broad and then get more specific.

a.       What do you mean by the word radio? – radio is a system of sending signals over the air where you tune into a fixed station and get the content being broadcast at this time.  Do you actually mean radio b/c in my house / car etc.  Content is streamed over the internet.  Could you clarify?

b.       What do you mean by the word alarm (like a wake up alarm, or also include scheduling alarm)?

c.       What do you mean by the next generation?  Kids, Children, Teens?

d.       Around my house we have an old fashioned digital alarm clock in every bedroom but we also have smart speakers and phones.  Everyone just uses a phone in my house?  Is there something that we are trying to accomplish with new product that is different than the solutions today?

e.       Form factor?  As mentioned in my house we have didigital alarm clocks (free standing), smart speakers in every room, must household members have a phone (my 10-year-old and 6 year old twins do not).   Are we improving or designing a free-standing alarm clock, or thinking about one of these other form factors?

My Product Design Framework

1.       Ask clarifying questions

2.       Define Persona

3.       Pick one persona to focus on (use some criteria)

4.       User Journey / Pain Points (for the selected persona)

5.       Pick one pain point to focus on (use some criteria)

6.       Come up with 3-4 solutions for the selected user persona and the selected pain point

7.       Pick one solution (Use criteria Reach, Impact, Effort).

8.       Metrics of success

9.       Identify limitations

10.   Summary

 

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