How Would You Design TikTok For Elderly | Product Manager Mock Interview

Key Takeaways

hi everyone I'm Bijan from PM exercises and today we're doing a mock interview with Emrick who's a comedian member of PM exercise as we're going to do a product design question together um so with that said we're going to get started but I first I'd love to have you and Rick maybe introduce yourself to the community before we get started sure hi everyone I'm Emery I'm a product manager and I have five years of product experience and I'm currently working on on 2B products thank you for having me awesome great so um the question we're going to be doing together today um it's a question um for tick tock product manager job interview the question is um how would you design Tick Tock for the older people design Tick Tock for older people yeah okay um okay um I will type on this document so that you can know my thinking process um great okay uh may I ask a few collaborative vacation questions first yeah of course clarification okay so you mentioned that we are designing for the older people um I know the the goal for this design project sure so um the goal uh let me ask you actually that question what do you think would be an appropriate goal in the case of um Tick Tock for the older generation what can you think of as like a goal that would be relevant sure so uh if I think of data metrics um designing for older people is not directly it's not going to give us a huge impact on our revenue or deductive user or retention I would think it's all more of a social impact Improvement we are trying to do good things as our vision said we are trying to bring creativities and the more new content to everyone in the world so I would say our goal is to improve our social impact and the and to solve the pimp and the soft pen points for older people that they are not able to to use deep talk proficiently if that's my assumption got it okay sounds good sounds good so um and when you say social impact how would you define social impact here good question um if you are going to use social impact as our goal I think I will I will I I will evaluate this in um several several other aspects one um how does how the our talk our Target users are receiving the product that we are we designed for them are they happy with it are they did they meet our design goal that's one that would be one thing because we are now thinking about uh retention or data active users to itself about the about the message that received by this by the society itself I'll look at the coverage of millions I will I would do user researchers on our um on our users on in our communities that is not our Target user for this best feature to see how they perceive this information I think that will be the two main ways that our evaluate social impact gone okay sounds good uh we can get started with that sure so our goal is social impact and uh may I also um also know our concept for older people because um Team tops Target users is about 18 to 25 are we talking about any people that is any users that is older than 25 years old or were you talking about anyone who's 65 years old and above that's a good question uh let's say 65 and above okay 65 and about here um I also ask if we have any limitations for this project timeline budget or human resources let's assume that we want to already ideally design something that can be shipped within less than one year okay so we already have already have uh I would say we already have the infrastructure yeah and the resource is sufficient okay I will rephrase this question so um Tick Tock is going to design a version for users six five years and older for a better social impact that's on duty yeah sounds good I really like how you um rephrase it in a way that's a lot more specific and a lot more meaningful so let's go ahead and continue thank you um May I also oh sorry one question that I forgot to ask I also assume that we are going to focus on mobile platforms or web platforms as well um that's fair and it's an important question in the context of our Target users so for keeping things simple let's assume that it's going to be mobile okay design a mobile version then I think my next step will be I will describe my methodology so that you can understand what what I will do for the uh for the next and then I'll give you as best details about my plans okay foreign analysis to see what are the existing pain points or future pain points that I might have for the for older people okay I'll do I'll do a simplified sword analysis to uh to to identify the priorities so that we can know that how how we're going to do this priority stations um I want to simplify this watch uh since we are not thinking about our competitors and and then I will identify and any value of the scenarios or use case of course with our Target User Group and then our designer app will will um of course we will design a verification bestology I don't think we will need to go to Mark go to market strategy here uh things uh things we are since we don't have we don't have um a very specific uh go for Revenue goal or using a user deductive user go here yeah and I will think of our risks or trade-offs okay that's what will be the things that I'm going to do next sounds good okay first pinpoint analysis I'll analyze the pain points from four aspects um content use it and the ux design so when we think of beaches um the mean way that our outward analysis is to is to do the comparison to compare the differences between feature content user user and user design future needs and and the factors between younger Generations younger people that as our mainstream users to other people what the difference is what changes are we going to make as you mentioned before that we already have ever infrastructure and uh and uh preliminary version that we have already built I assume that we are we are we are using the resources that we have at this moment so in terms in terms of features I would think it's in uh in in the in in a in a way that users open from the user opened to talk to to watch the the specific video so um opening of that I don't think that will be that that will be that will make any differences and uh and the recommend and uh and uh selection of of the app a selection of a Content I don't think that will also cause any any issues here um comment comments might be might be one one one thing to hear the older people uh older Generations might have issues so I'm a market here like yeah I think that's all for the for the Future Part oh um I think one thing that I miss is that I didn't identify the scope for this new app where I think we are not well we're not going to ship a full feature app to the ASL at our first version and we are going to limit our our scenario our the user scenario for our first step um to to our uh key user scenario so I think let's um let's identify this as as we are going to offer an app that is that is only providing providing video browsing comment and the like feature okay and we have already analysis the feature about content and about like we think that those are the two features that older Generations might have differences in terms of data behaviors and content is the key part um we need to adopt the content foreign Generations this little this one related to the algorithm related to the selection of content yes I'll leave the truth here users so when we think about users we have two parts the the creators the uploader of the content and also the older generation themselves so when we when we say users we need to provide um let me think about it I think we do not need to think of you know think about uh think about the the greater part because because generating the way that we generate contents will be the same but it's just about the content of the it's just about the the content content itself so so we only think about think of the older Generations our talking users so when we think of users we think of uh interactions between users between between users which is the which is the common which is actually the common parts we also think of the user portfolio the signal setting up of the four users um that's actually the selection selection of their interest or for cornstarch okay yeah I think that'll be it for for users at the moment this moment and for ux designers uh visual uh other generation might need a network might need a bigger buttons um more uh better contrast we might also need to need to think of the the screens and also and also the type of devices devices that other Generations using uh so that we can make sure that um the the new version is compatible with them because I think that the the devices might be different let me add a more section here performance so come early yeah I think that will be all the all the pain points here let me let me do uh to summarize about about what we will need to do I do have any questions no um that's fine I think you clarified uh kind of how the plan like you you highlighted what pain points um are interesting to pay attention to let's see where you go next okay sure so how to summarize so that we can know that we are what we are going to do so we are going to uh simplify um we are going to simplify like process simplify comment process or not simplified maybe educate just quick question could clarify um are you describing um kind of like the user pain points right now or are you describing the solutions uh user user pen points user pen points and um I'll do it in in a way that is so when we think of user pain points I think we will we will initially have a have a solution in our mind so here I'm not going to uh draw a very clear line between penpoint and the solutions the solutions here because we are I think at this stage what we need to know the the priority that we are having at this moment is to to find out the directions about what we are going to do next and also the priorities about our own strategies and also our development roadmap here okay sounds good foreign content algorithm and call start for users visual redesign usually designed for contrast and in interactions and the featuring the options compared to reality check for performance okay so here we have already installed priority we have our list of to-do's and uh in the in prioritization I would like to use a two by two two by two Matrix to identify uh which one uh to to evaluate um the the cost and also the impact so my way of evaluating this and will be to to ask the question that well uh and what impact we will um we will we will have or what are the what will be the impact for your experience uh if we are missing this feature so I think I think so I think in this way and the the highest Priority One will be compatibility and and uh visual because without without proper design for the Europe for your experience and also the compatibility users will not be able to open open this app at the first place and then it's content after user can open this app if the content is not attractive then the whole thing is not many the whole thing is meaningless we will not be able to achieve our goal about bringing interesting things uh to the older Generations and the and the lowest priority is is about comment and uh and the live process the lack of the lack process is uh is a is a feedback that we can collect from the users about their interest but uh whether it's our current algorithm practice we can we can also use other other metrics for this or we can we can simply uh remove this feature to uh to a future generation instead of encoding it in our first phrase as our part of our MVP okay and so we already have uh we already have identified our key user scenarios here and we already have our prioritizations and the next step will be the design design design process so um with a Word document I'm not able to to draw a box startup I will I'll describe what I will do for the for the design itself I think I think a few things I would do is in terms of the design is that I will I will remove all the features that is not related related to the to the contents to the to the building of the content itself it will be one thing second I will I will make sure I will I will enlarge the buttons in the color contrast for the for the existing sign up process or maybe we can actually remove the sign up process and and the whole process for this feature can be open the app and pop up the and pop out the video that that we we tested that we tested and then my attractive intentions of the older Generations so the so the whole design for the app will actually become just in just adjusted the content of the application just the content on content itself and uh and uh and a button for the users to report uh any any content that is that that is that is not suitable for them that will be the the actually will be the whole design and the verification and and the preparation of the preparation of content we'll do we'll do a simple user research and to select because Tick Tock already have older Generations here at this moment in our community we can we can we can we can select uh um identify the number of contents as our code chart and to and to see whether whether whether this content can be can be our course chart for the for this app itself so we we we have our plans for algorithm where our content uh we identify the code start we identified the visual we should visual design and the last step what we'll do is that we will uh we will collect that we will collect the the top 10 uh modules the top 10 devices that they're they're using uh to see and and to to do the compatibility check okay uh and we talked about verification methodologies risk and trade-off uh so here the the risk here is that um one I'm not I'm not sure um foreign because maybe TV will be a better solution or maybe other ways that would be one thing that we will need to detect dig deeper truly that's our assumption here at this moment is that says adoption rate for the for how to use mobile devices uh the older Generations is weaker than the younger Generations this assumption might not be true for example maybe older Generations is also Keen at uh sending comments they're also there also want more interactions with the with the uh with the greater creators there will be the the second assumption that uh that we will need to analyze the last one will be the last one will be competitive analysis in the whole process we our assumption is that our competitors Tick Tock YouTube so you don't have a way for the other generations to to view the content on the on their platforms efficiently and uh and if there is already an incontinent in this market we might not we might we might also need to consider the user behaviors those incompetence platforms that have already generated and my my last uh last last thing that I would think is about the future plans what are we going to do in the future to accommodate a better culture and also to accommodate a better better environment inside this app so that the older Generations can keep using this platform instead of we are just providing a one-time solution for them got it um thanks so much for the answer um a couple questions I have for you is first of all how would you know um if a user of the tech talk app is an older generation or not like from the beginning yes I think I think I was telling you several ways to do this one and a possibly that uh so you know the sign up process everyone needs to input their their age so that's one way and secondly that we can use our algorithm itself to base to to determine what uh the age the age group of the user based on their browsing Behavior based on their location based on the devices that they're using or based on the based on the content the data contents on their on their on their context that will be two part one yeah go ahead got it yeah that makes sense I think the only part that uh you know makes me wonder is there are like today for example like at least in the case of iPhone right um it is possible that you'd be dealing with a user um whose data is not available to you so you know I think the concern that comes to my mind is um in order for us to build this like kind of customized user interface right in order for us to know how good or not it's the right time to present it we need certain information that we might not have access to immediately um I'm curious to know you know what what your feedback to that is and like you know is there a way to go around that what are your thoughts on that yes I think there's um there are two parts here so so essentially uh what we are discussing at this moment is that's uh about the scope of data that we can access um two scenarios one if the user give us the permission to to its contacts then we can use we can use the the existing users in the uterus context to identify the use groups to identify execution level and other interesting points two if we if the user didn't give us any information then I think the the only thing that we can we can utilize is our code start it's based on the initial behaviors of the users in browsing the content um on Photoshop I think the strategy that I'll use is that since this version is a version for other router generation so I assume that it's very likely the the user who downloaded this app or the other who's using this app will be older generation so I will my so our our process for the code start will be to verify whether this this user is older generation so we will so our we will buy a secure the content that is older Generations might be interested and to verify whether the user is interested in the general in the in the content that we provided got it got it thanks so much for sharing that okay great so um given that we have limited time I want to kind of uh shift Focus to giving you some feedback uh first of all thank you so much for providing an answer really well structured um I really liked how you started with um good clarification questions that narrowed down the scope of your questions significantly not only that you actually rephrase um the interview question that uh really presented how you were able to actually apply uh my answers into um the process of narrowing down the scope of the question so really well done there talked about methodologies pain points um highlighted a few really good pain points came up with a couple Solutions a couple areas that I was wondering um if you know it could be more to be done uh first of all regarding the goal I don't disagree with you know having a social impact um maybe where I would have liked to kind of see you talk a little bit more about is um maybe something like engagement doesn't matter at this point and why right um or um you could actually talk more about how uh by focusing on social impact uh you'd be driving engagement um in the long run right so you can say social impact is kind of this North Star goal that if we can deliver on it's going to deliver engagement um or engagement doesn't matter to you you know you share why that's the case right um that was the one thing that I was kind of wondering uh why social impact right I would like to kind of get more context and you did provide a little bit of an information on but I think there's more detail uh needs to be provided just so that I feel comfortable that uh you know you have a strategic way of arriving at the right goal then the next part that I would say uh would have been interesting for me to kind of see um you um thinking more about And discussing more is really the user Journey right um and I think you did a pretty good job like highlighting some of the pain points but um it another way you could have potentially gone about it is to say okay like you know when I think about um you know a senior person like trying to interact with the phone I can think about like the first step would be um you know somebody's probably suggesting to them to download the app because they're not the top that's they're just going to go to the app store and try to find uh somebody told them about it maybe they're in the context of like um relatives around them so they're downloading the app um then maybe the first uh you know thing is once they download on somebody's like kind of explaining to them how it works or maybe they send them a link um that they have to kind of you know look into it and then download it and then after that uh we can talk about I think you talked a little bit about um the features that are relevant to them um maybe we can talk more about it's a more senior person has not grown um in in an environment where social media was all around them maybe there like less comfortable with um expressing their opinions publicly in the social media so that's something to kind of keep in mind because that's a different user Behavior than maybe somebody who's like you know a gen Z for example right um and what I'm trying to say is I think highlighting what that user Journey end-to-end looks like it would be pretty interesting right because along the way you will probably identify a few pain points and I don't disagree with um some of the pain points that are highlighted here but that like kind of user Journey driven pain Point Discovery um it makes it a little bit more systematic in my opinion um and then like in terms of um you know that the solutions um yes I mean I think um there are um a few things that you highlighted really well um and um what I wanted to kind of um see also at this point is given that the very first thing that needs to happen in this kind of user onboarding is to identify um that the individual belongs to this user group um it would have been interesting to kind of like talk a little bit about that right um how would you how would you identify that and I think you talked briefly about that after I mentioned it um but there are ways that you can you can discover that right like you kind of mentioned maybe you can kind of look at um the the hand gestures as one way right because I'm sure there's like AI um you know way of like kind of determining patterns of interaction between a senior versus non-senior or looking at like you know phone historical data if there's anything available um that'll give you a hint but I think that's an important piece of information um and then the rest of it um yeah keeping it simple I think it's pretty interesting um and um eventually I think you can kind of do the evaluation the way you've done it uh one thing I would have tried to do personally is to really separate out uh pain points from the solutions as much as possible I think one could say that your pain points were basically the feature content user ux design performance and then the solution was after that um but at that point when you were at um kind of listing out the five things that you highlighted in bullet points I wasn't super clear if you're in the pain points phase or you're the solution space right um you want to make that super clear because ideally when you're at the pain Point phase you're not even thinking about um the solution so much because for every problem um there are different way you know they're different solutions that um you can think about so um that's something that I would also highlight um to kind of keep in mind keep it as separate as possible um that'll make it easier for you thank you so much for participating in the interview I hope you have fun um I had a lot of fun like always so I hope to do more mock interviews together thank you so much thank you thank you for your feedback very useful cool I'm glad to hear that so what did you think um yes I think I'm uh I'm a little bit lost uh in the in the pinpoint part I think as you mentioned um I didn't separate the pinpoint and the solutions very clearly that's that's uh yeah I think that's very very that's very important in the future uh future interviews yeah I think that the mock interview is very very useful so a lot of blind points that when I'm practicing I eat it by myself yeah yeah it's um it's honestly it's like it's like exercising it's like after you do it's like learning how to swim like after you do a bunch of them um you kind of like understand how to do it and like even if you're getting invited uh to your job and you're in a meeting where you're talking about like user pain points somebody starts solving it you're like wait a second like you know we're still at the interview we're still at the user pain Point phase so um there are like you know all these really beneficial uh values that um you know you will get from it out of the line but to be honest I think um you you were very strong at the first part right um um by the way I want to cut out all these parts um you're very strong at the first part but I thought towards the um once you got into the pain points it could be more and more specific and the solutions are ideally even more specific than that so like you can uh you can like ideally very very clearly say this is what we're going to build you know what I mean like this is exactly what we're gonna do um that's the part that I think um needs a bit more practice but yes you know it takes it takes a bit of a Time takes a bit of a Time on practice and I think over time I'm sure you're going to do pretty well in it