P.S: I’ve never used Facebook Portal. This answer is based on the experience of people shared on online.

Clarification:

1. By improvement, are we limiting ourselves just to hardware or software? Do we have any limitations that I should be aware of? We are open to any improvement and there are no constraints
2. What goal are we focussing on now? User Acquisition. Considering the present pandemic, we want to increase our user base as much as  possible
3. Do we have any particular reason for aiming to improve? Like Competition has launched something more advanced, or we are doing it more like a task to solve user’s issues?It has been long since any upgradation has been done to the device and thus we are aiming to improve it now.

•  Family members/ Friends
• Working Professionals (except Teachers)
• Teachers

• It is getting more and more difficult to teach the kids by giving them an classroom experience at their respective homes
• Creating the Student-Student bonds is not possible because of the present situation.

• Using the AR feature of Portal, we can create a filter with School Uniform for the students and make them see a background with a classroom atmosphere.
• Curriculum Books can be added to the the Story Time Feature along with the previous story books. Thus, when a teacher uses this feature the students will have an immersive feel for them. This’ll attract the kids more and encourage them to listen to the online class.

SolutionReachImpact Complexity

Reasons for the above prioritization:

Already the device has many AR filters that can be applied, Thus making one more filter for the school atmosphere will be pretty easy for them and the background having class like atmosphere will be able to influence the kids. This will also help them adjust easily when they return to their schools after pretty much 2 years[Being a Lot more Optimistic :)]

1. Describe the Product

   Facebook portal is hardware product from Facebook. This was an attempt by Facebook to enter into hardware product offering. Portal (product, here after refereed as Portal) provides means to make video calls, service as audio assistant.
   Portal comes in various flavors complete photo frame or add-on to use with one’s TV. It is builtin camera and microphone.
   In some models, it offers means to cover camera and disable microphone. It integrates with whatsapp also.

2. Clarify the Scope

   What exactly is the goals of improvement ? Following are number of options to pursue
   – Improve its security posture with customers to build a better reputation
   – Establish an unique value preposition for portal. At the current point, there is no real value for the portal offering, it is very similar to other things on the market.
   – Quality of video-telephony ?
   – Improve sales
   – Improve awareness

3. Negotiate a smaller scope

   Some of these goals are intertwined but we can focus on building a value proposition. Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.

   I would like to focus on “Establish an unique value preposition for portal. At the current point, there is no real value for the portal offering.”

4. Choose the Goal

   Establish an unique and distinct value proposition for portal which stands out from Amazon Alexa or other similar products.

5. List User Groups & Select particular Group/s

   The following are the user groups I like to focus.
   1) Tech savvy individuals
   2) Older population, not so tech aware. Limited to TV level of technology awareness
   3) Kids – Under the age of understanding the technology (might be hard once past 3 year old)

6. Select particular Group/s.  Select particular Group/s

   I will choosing to the group 2 as central for the discussion. In order to support this user group, we may have to extend into other segments. But the product is focused to meet the needs of this group.

7. List User Needs

   User needs :
   1) Need most of the configuration/setup to be as automated as possible.
   2) For this age group, any kind of typing or complicated interface is not an option.
   3) They are looking to find ways and means to be in touch with their loved one staying away from them i.e Want to be part of grand kids daily life.
   4) Younger loved one, kids want to be able to virtually present in their parent daily life. This may mean more than just talking to them or hear them. i.e help with daily routines, as if they stayed together with their family

8. Call out user pain points specifically if you can

   1) The audio input is too structured and not friendly enough. Have to learn the phraseology.(As an assistant)
   2) Portal is limited to video and audio call and need another Alexa or google home to supplement it (for full Alexa features)
   3) Not compatible with other devices (non messenger or whats app) at the other end.

9. Prioritize the user needs/painpoints

   1) Ways for adults kids to help older parents with their daily chores and more involved than just a video calls.
   – This above feature has many aspects to it
   a) Can they keep track of medication their parents are supposed to take
   b) Are they able to observe any abnormality in their behavior, early signs of older age deceases.

   2) Minor additions like, use it as photo frame

10. List Product Ideas

    Some of the ideas are
    1) Partner with companies with AI solution to prognosis early Alzheimer’s and depression symptoms
    2) Add object detection, so you can help them with locating their things.
    3) Add accident detection features, i.e Fall, fire, any kind of danger.

    Many of these enhancement can be done with software enhancement.

11. Prioritize a solution(s)

    The following is the priority order and followed with Impact, Effort and Cost
    3) H, M, M
    2) M, M, M
    1) H, H, H

12. Describe the Selected Solution

    The features that can enhance the Facebook portal experience are based on improving the experience of Older people and ability for family to stay more closer with parents and elderly.

13. Define the success matrix

    Success matrix
    # Number of devices sold
    # Survey to find out with users if these feature have helped them to stay more connected and feel safer than before.
    # Number of positive alerts the portal is able to detect

14. Summarize your answer

    In order to bring unique value proposition to Facebook portal, we are adding features specifically targeted to older people. This helps the daily lives of older people but also provides better means to stay connect for kids.

So I have never heard of FB Portal before let me Google this real quick for a min. Per my reading, it seems FB Portal was a hardware product that never really took off but it’s a tablet sort of product that syncs w/ Alex to schedle reminders, watch news, play fav music, etc. It also has smart camera that pans as yu move about during teh call, has enhance sound that helps weaken bacckground sound and also has some interesting features such as creating a scene with animation and sounds with immersive AR experice with kids fav story book characters to make the video call through whtsapp / messenger more fun for kids. Any additional details about this product we should go over?

I: No. You pretty much got the gist.

Me: Great. Before we go further, wanted ot ask if ther is anything in particular that we are attempting to improve? Are there specific complaints we have had from customers? Is there some market reserach that we have done that’s driving us to want to address something? Are there any high level directions from executive? Is there specific group of users we are trying to solve for?

I: Pick.

Me: Great…so let’s talk about FB’s mission. It being “fostering networking of people from across the globe and making the world feel like smaller place” it makes sense to think about our north start objective to be somethign that would support the mission. Considering FB is a mature product but FB Portal isn’t mature and it’s likely still nascent stage, acqusition may seem to be a good goal to shoot for.

Approach:

I want to first think of type of users, since once I know that, then I can think of what might be interesting to my user group that would entice them to want to buy FB Portal. So think of what might be intersting to them I would think of their needs and come up with few solutions. I may need to prioritize an MVP but that depends on any constraints we have on resources, time, etc. Do we have any constraints?

I: No

Me; Ok. Any questions on my approach?

I: No

Me: Great. User segment would be: 1)Young people 2)Family (so no more young and single) 3)Elderly 4)Corporate users

I think use of this product has more of a consumer appeal than more so corporate. Corporates get vidoe callign capability using Zoom and all and don’t need to invest in separate hardware for this. I would focus more on Young single people since they are the ones who have more time to use gadgets like these vs family who have many other responsibilities. Young people are also the ones who are most likely wanting to travel with friends, watch more movies, etc. things that they can’t do with friends given Covid. So if we can improve the product for them, it’s easier to attract this group to buying something else that’s cool in the marketplace. Also, younger you are, the more chances of buying just because you friend has it type of thing. Bigger impact here!

I: Sounds great.

Me: Let me think of their needs / gaps in what they get from other products for a minute. 1)Lack of other means to connect while feeling like interactions are in person 2)With busy professional life and all, need help with mainting social connections.

For now these are all the pain points I can think of so if you are ok i will go ahead and want to provide solutions. Considering we only have 2 pain points, I will address both and then attempt to evaluate and pick my MVP.

I: Sure

Me: 1a)During pandemic times, movie theaters are all pretty much closed. But even during non-pandemic times, people who don’t live close to each other, like is the case for many social connections on FB, it’s important to be able to do things that blur out the lines of distance even more considering that’s what FB is all about. If one can start a video call through Portal and be able to share a movie together that would be a unique product that enables for such an experience. Entertainment is what helps people feel good. Feeling good is what would attract more customers to this product purchase.

1b) Providing AR experiene at chosen spots (such as Yosemite trails, or Greece, etc.) wth local sounds while we walk through the area. Sounds wouldn’t neccessarily repeat during a conversation unless you were on it for 1.5 hours or so taht way you get a feel of having taken a vaccation together. I do think my users will buy this product just to experience this feature. Heck, you can even add a camping experience with bon fire.

2a)Providing reminders that you haven’t talked to a friend in so long so you should connect and making easier for you to arrange a call by filling in all the details minus date / time. Sending it to all intended participants (it suggests participants but then you all can add and remove).

2b)Enabling a friend of mine to leave me a live video vm but this would only be done if sending that vm using Portal. If recipient doesn’t have Portal can see receive this video vm on whtsapp / messenger on phoen but to send one you hvae to have Portal. Reason for this is that this entices a user to buy Portal.

If I had to proritize an MVP, I would go with 1a. 1b is good but I feel ther is going to be just enough of these experiences people are going to want to use. + AR is not main stream yet and not everyone has AR headset. I also think that for 1a there are prob some other tools out there that enables you to share a movie together already; I am not aware of one. But even if there is such a tool, Portal providing that will add value since there is one more reason to get Portal to centrailize various things my young person user wants to do. I also think there is a high amount of reach and value add complexity to implement this is low since we can possibly use an API to enable this feature. 2a will have less value add since peopel generally are good ermembering to keep in contact with people they care about. This is not a feature that will make someoen buy a $200 hardware. 2b I do like but I don’t think it’s a good enough reason to buy a Portal. There are downsides to 1a though especially after COVID. I am not sure if post-COIVD will help us move the needle.

All in all, I would want to measure success of this launch. I would measure over a QTR (since QTR is a good time period to see market effectiveness and consumer response to it): 1)# of units sold 2)
% of young people adoption vs elderly (here maybe beyond 35 is young since most 35 + have a family). However, # of units sold is a direct measure of user acquisition but #2 measure does help me evaluate if i got success with my intended audiance . This is important to know since I could end up realizing a different user segment seems to be better for my product and that will drive my future decisions on this product.

In summary, I chose to focus on young user since they are the ones most likely to want to use newer tech / gadets. Also, young ones are the ones who consistently grow social relationships across the globe so it ties in nicely with FB’s mission. To do this, I thought of providing experiences that enable a user to build stronger releationships and add value from that angle.