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Design a product for solo women travelers.

  • Related to Product Design
  • For Consumer PM
  Google
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Answers (2)

Clarifying scope

  1.       Are there any market / resource constraints for building this app -> No
  2. What is my role in building this app -> Google Product Manager
  3. Can I assume that this is a mobile app -> Yes

users

  1. Travelling on business visit
  2. Travelling on vacation
  3. Working women who travel to visit their families

Amongst the above users, I think there is a lot of potential in building an app for solo women travelers’ on vacation and the reason I would like to focus on this group is because

  1. There is a lot of scope to explore its not like typical business visit with a source (hotel) and a destination (office)
  2. There is a need to discover the new place

Goal

As we are planning to build an app for solo women travelers, I would like to focus on ensuring the app is helping them in their travel experience, meaning I would like to build an app that reminds them every time to engage with when they think of their travel.

Now that we have our users and goals, I would like to come up with some of the needs , followed by suggested solutions and would like to summarize by picking one solution and metrics that will help track our goal (engagement)

User needs

Need Priority
They would like to understand the significance of the new place, places to visit Medium
Suggestions on places to stay and places to eat based on their favorite cuisine Medium
Helps them with vacation memories and experience High
Security, help understand any recent threats or incidents that happened in that place to ensure safety High
Organize their calendar on the given day based on the days they are staying Medium
Find any old friends to connect with Medium

I feel that both ensuring the vacation is memorable and safety in the new place are of utmost important and when compared I feel nothing stands more than safety and security so I would like to prioritize that feature and carve out few solutions and pick a recommendation.

Solutions

Solution Effort Impact Tradeoff
A mobile app which highlights recent incidents reported and appropriate measures like safe tourism times Low Low Notifies the incidents that recently occurred but cannot guarantee the safety and security of the traveler
Based on the destination location assess the current traffic, estimated number of people in permissible limits, recent incidents and warn the user to ensure safety Medium High This is a great feature but does not exactly help inform close people, cops or anyone in times of danger
Live tracking leveraging google latitude and a more timely help in times of danger by alerting the cops and close family friends. High High User should enable the location services on to ensure there is a 360-safety provided. This needs to go through the security and privacy compliance.

The app using the in-built camera and the live location tracking services, monitors the people around, identifies any malicious threat and informs the near by police station and close friends, since we are leveraging the built in camera, we will enable AI to enhance the feature further to take pictures during these incidents and send them to the cops.

Metrics:

  1. Daily active Users and Monthly Active users
  2. Dau to MAU ratio to help understand the stickiness of the product
  3. No. of times incidents were reported to the number of false alarms
Solution Impact Effort  
    1. Provide details about recent accidents especially with women in that area. Share news links
 Low – internet has data High – so many different locations, track on daily basis  
    1. Provide a list of items to carry for self-defense or suggest where to buy from after reaching the location
 low – people have general awareness Low  
    1. Provide details on safe times to travel
 High – not readily available on any platform yet Low – one time effort to collect data  
    1. Provide SOS button on app that contacts nearest police station immediately.
    2. List of affordable yet safe hotels to live, public transports to use – since low on budget and travel frequently
 High

 

High – can be found on booking websites but not good enough data

 Medium – need to coordinate with police stations

Medium – one time effort to collect this data

  
    1. Clarifying questions –
      1. Do we an app or a physical product? – App
      2. Any particular geography to implement the solutions? – NO
      3. Any constraints of time, resources? – NO
      4. Are we startup or established company? – Google
      5. Do we have any other travel apps in the market? – NO
      6. Goal – improve user experience while traveling
    2. PS – Design an app to improve travel experience for solo women travelers as a PM at Google.
    3. Mission of Google – Provide the best search and get anyone access any information from anywhere
    4. Users
      1. First time travelers
      2. Occasional solo travelers
      1. Travel solo very frequently once in 3 months on an average- If we can provide value to improve their experience can see the biggest impact.
      2. Low budget but can put in extra effort – 18-30 years – Biggest segment that travels solo- single, more enthusiastic to travel and explore on own
      1. Can spend – earning well – mid-career professionals
      2. A bit elderly – 50+ years
      3. Target – Young working professionals women in the age group 18-30 years who travel solo very frequently – once every 3 months
    5. User journey – Pain Points
      1. Decide on a location – can be confusing to decide based on budget, climate, etc
      2. Plan the different places to cover in that country
      3. Book flights, hotels
      1. Travel safely – safety concerns about the new place, how safe for women, whom to reach out to in case of emergency – attack or accident
      1. Explore what different locations in that city, where to eat
      2. Share memories with friends and families
    6. Solutions – table moved upwards while posting the answer
    1. Metrics
      1. %users exploring the safe travel time feature
      2. %SOS calls responded well by police
      3. #hotels checked, %hotel booked from the suggestion list
    2. Summary
      1. To provide solo women travelers on budget travel and traveling frequently with safety we should provide details about safe times to travel, SOS button on app, details about affordable hotels in the area