How would you improve Grammarly? | Amazon PM Interview
Amazon Product Manager Interview: Product Improvement - How would you improve Grammarly?
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Before jumping on to the solution,
Now, let’s get started with the solution -
Interview Tip: Always remember to follow the framework
Step 0: Listen Carefully
Question asked: How would you improve Grammarly?
Two things to keep in mind:
Define the product - Grammarly.
Clarify & Define the term “Improvement”.
Step 1: Describe the Product
To start off in the right direction, you need to explain your understanding of the product – what does it do, who uses it, and how.
Grammarly is a powerful and user-friendly spelling and grammar checking tool that is designed to help users improve their writing skills. It works by highlighting errors in grammar, spelling, punctuation, and style, and then providing suggestions for corrections. The tool is available to users as a standalone desktop application, web application, browser extension, and also as a plugin to MS word.
One of the reasons why I like Grammarly is that it is easy and efficient to use. The interface is simple and intuitive, making it easy for users to navigate and find the tools they need. Additionally, the tool is highly accurate and provides detailed explanations for each error, making it easy for users to understand and learn from their mistakes.
Another reason why I like Grammarly is that it works cross-platform. This means that users can access it from any device, whether they are working on a desktop computer, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. This makes it easy for users to work on their writing projects no matter where they are, and it also allows them to collaborate with others more easily.
I also like the fact that Grammarly has a plagiarism checker. This feature is particularly useful for students, writers, and researchers, as it helps to ensure that their work is original and not copied from other sources. The plagiarism checker compares the text to billions of online sources and highlights any potential instances of plagiarism, so users can be confident that their work is unique.
Some of the competitors of Grammarly are ProWritingAid, White Smoke, Writer.com, etc. However, Grammarly has a few more features than its competitors, like Plagiarism checker and also a more user-friendly interface.
In conclusion, Grammarly is a powerful and user-friendly spelling and grammar-checking tool that helps users improve their writing skills. It is available to users as a standalone desktop application, web application, browser extension, and also as a plugin to MS word. It is easy and efficient to use, works cross-platform and also has a plagiarism checker. This makes Grammarly a valuable tool for anyone who wants to improve their writing skills and ensure that their work is original and error-free.
Now that we are clear on the product description and the interviewer is also onboarded.
Let’s move on to the next step: Ask Clarifying Questions.
You: “Before we move on, I have a few clarifying questions I want to ask. Shall I proceed?”
Step 2: Ask clarifying questions to narrow the scope of the question
Q) What do we mean by improvement here?
Improve user engagement?
Increase user retention?
Increase revenue?
Increase user base?
A) It’s up to you. You are free to choose.
Q) Are we focussing on any particular platform like desktop web or mobile app?
A) Both
Q) For the improvement are we focusing on a particular region or target group?
A) You are free to choose.
Step 3: Define the Goal you want to achieve.
The mission of Grammarly is to “improve lives by improving communication”.
Its digital writing assistant helps people write more clearly and effectively, providing feedback on correctness, clarity, engagement, and delivery.
I feel user engagement is something that aligns very closely with this mission of Grammarly. So, I will focus on improving user engagement.
Mention your approach -
“Now that we have defined the goals for this problem, I will go ahead and list down the user segments for this product, followed by the pain points these users are facing, prioritizing them, and coming up with a prioritized list of solutions and metrics that we will track to identify its success.”
Step 4: List the User Segments and choose one segment to focus on.
Users can be divided into the following types,
Students:
Mostly used by graduate, post-grad, Ph.D. students who are in universities for corrections in project documents, research papers, articles, emails, etc.
Working Professionals:
Mostly used by working professionals like Consultants, Lawyers, Marketers, Bloggers, Journalists, etc. for their day-to-day activities. (emails, articles, documents, etc.)
Business:
Grammarly for Business is also used by different enterprises and universities to improve the communication and efficiency of their internal teams.
Now, Select your user group and state your reason for the same. -
“For the scope of this question, I plan to go ahead with the Student segment, as this segment of users are very large in the number who are looking for ways to learn and improve their written communication.
If we can solve the pain points of these users, and help them engage more then that would increase the user engagement, which in turn can lead to an increase in retention and possibly revenue as well.”
Step 5: List down the user pain-points
Pain-Points of Student segment,
Students become very much dependable on Grammarly. They are not able to track their mistakes and improve their language skills.
Students can’t use Grammarly for other languages apart from English.
Students with poor vision or reading difficulties are unable to use Grammarly effectively.
Grammarly premium subscription services (like, contextual alternate word suggestions, formatting, tone corrections, plagiarism detection) which can increase more engagement are expensive for individuals.
Next, I would prioritize the user-pain points based on criteria like,
Impact on the User & Business
Pain Point #1 - Impact: High
Pain Point #2 - Impact: High
Pain Point #3 - Impact: Low
Pain Point #4 - Impact: Medium
Based on the above criteria and the goals (increase engagement) which we have set, I have prioritized pain points 1 & 2.
Step 6: List down the solutions for these prioritized pain-points
1) Students become very much dependable on Grammarly. They are not able to track their mistakes and improve their language skills.
A) Learn with Grammarly: A learning module that will help users,
Track(phase 1) - The repetitive errors that a user makes in terms of spelling/ grammar / writing tone.
Learn(phase 2) - Based on the repetitive errors made by the user, users will get personalized grammar lessons, spelling tests, typing tests as learning options.
Users can also go through the exhaustive list of grammar lessons and update their language skills.
Practice(phase 3) - Post learning, users can start practicing the lessons by giving short quizzes and attempting practice sets.
Motivate (phase 4) - To motivate users to learn and engage more, we can gamify the learning process by introducing rewards, badges, levels, and weekly progress reports.
Using this feature, users will be able to learn and improve their language skills which will increase engagement in the platform.
2) Students can’t use Grammarly for other languages apart from English.
A) Grammarly in Multiple Languages: Grammarly will now be able to work on multiple native languages apart from English (like Chinese, Spanish, Hindi etc. ). This will build a competitive advantage for Grammarly and bringing in more new users onto the platform which in turn will boost engagement.
Step 7: Evaluate the solutions and prioritize them
Your next step is to present your evaluation and execution skills by evaluating your solutions with different sets of criteria such as,
Impact on customer & business
Implementation costs & effort
Solution #1 (Learn with Grammarly) - Impact: High, Effort: Medium
Solution #2 (Grammarly in Multiple Languages) - Impact: High, Effort: High
Based on the above criteria I have prioritized the solutions in the following order,
Learn with Grammarly.
Grammarly in Multiple Languages (the cost, effort, and time required to master and suggest accurate corrections on other regional languages is very high).
Step 8: Define Metrics for measuring performance
Learn with Grammarly -
# of lessons viewed on a WoW and MoM basis.
# of test/quiz attempted on a WoW and MoM basis.
# of corrections suggested on a daily and weekly basis.
Other metrics -
DAU/MAU (stickiness) of Grammarly.
Average session time per user.
Step 9: Summarize your answer
Provide a quick summary of what you have accomplished during the interview. First, highlight the goal of the improvement. Then briefly mention what user group and use cases you are focusing on. Then discuss the solutions you are proposing to achieve your goal and finally, explain the metrics you will use to measure the impact of your suggested improvements.