Google maps is a product that helps people explore places and find directions from a point A to point B. The vision for Google maps is to organize the world’s information around places and make it useful and accessible to everyone. Google Maps is a mature product that has several features around the entire user journey of traveling from point A to B.

Pro Tip: Before you dive into answering the question, you ideally have a couple of clarifying questions to scope the problem.

Let’s structure this article as an interview simulation.

Me: Given the increase in the average life expectancy of people, I believe 60 is no longer the retirement age (senior citizen age). Is there an age range you want me to focus on or should I consider everyone above the age of 60?

Interviewer: Above 60 is fine.

Me: Is there a specific goal that we are looking to achieve? Is it the acquisition of senior citizens or improving their engagement or both?

Interviewer: It is more around engagement.

Me: Are there any time and/or resource constraints that I should be aware of?

Interviewer: Not really

Me: Do you want to focus on the app or also the website? Is this a roll-out for a specific region / country or the entire world?

Interviewer: App is fine. We can focus on India as a country for now.

Based on the above answers let me summarise the problem statement:

Me: I’d like to focus on the goal of increasing the # of times a senior citizen uses google maps to get from point A to point B. Google Maps is a fairly popular app and most people are aware of it so I’d like to assume senior citizens know that there is a map app on their phone as most senior citizens are android users and Google Maps is pre-installed. The goal is to make it an easy-to-use experience for people who are on the lower end of the tech-savvy scale. Is that fine with you?

Interviewer: Yeah, let’s move forward.

Now that we have the goal we are aiming to achieve, let's look at the user personas in the light of who they are, what they do, how they use our product, and when. This is important because value creation is by the context in which the product is used.

Three user personas come to mind:

1. Ramesh, a 60-year-old man who just retired and has started a wholesale business. He is not challenged health-wise and doesn’t like sitting at home. For his new business, he is looking for partners, manufacturers, etc, and also has to travel to nearby districts / states for his clients. He is fairly tech-savvy as he was an engineer with the government

2. Chitra is a 65-year-old woman who has lived in a tier 2 city most of her life. She has a son in Bangalore and would now love to move closer to him, if not in the same house. She is active and independent. She doesn’t want to feel like a burden on anyone as long as she possibly can. She is moderately tech-savvy, uses her phone for WhatsApp and some videos on youtube

3. Vishnu is 78 years old and lives with his kids in the same house in a tier 3 city. He doesn’t go out so much other than daily walks to the park or the hospital for regular check-ups. He is always accompanied by a driver if he is going to the hospital and by family members, if he ever goes out for dinner or lunch on special occasions.

With the given context I would like to prioritize the personas based on the highest utility to the segment:

Me: So senior citizens who are too old and don’t go out too much are a segment that will use Google Maps rarely. Folks who start a business at that age and want to take risks are also a small segment. But a lot of older folks either move closer to their children or stay independently. Therefore this persona has quite a few use cases where Google maps as a product is valuable and hence I will prioritize this segment. Are you with me so far?

Interviewer: Yeah.

Now going through the user journey let’s figure out a few pain points that the users experience. We can also have some of their accepted customer beliefs added to this list which hampers our users from using our product to the desired level of engagement.

a. I have never done this before and it feels too complicated to look on the map and drive/walk. I may get distracted and unfocused. I can just ask people for directions and places around the area

b. It feels cluttered, difficult to use and I don’t need so many options on the screen

c. The voice assistant has an accent and it gets difficult for me to understand when she speaks fast

d. I don’t want to step out when there is a lot of traffic. I also forget when I have appointments and then have to rush. Hence, I prefer to be accompanied by someone or reschedule the appointment

e. My children/loved ones don’t want me to go too far alone

f. It’s a bit hard to read the text in the small fields and I have to squint to read it. Also, the destination field doesn’t populate completely and it’s hard for me to scroll horizontally and check if that is the correct address

g. I don’t have anyone to go out with as I don’t know anyone around me who also wants to do the same things or has an active lifestyle

h. I want some recommendations but they should be tailored to me as given my age I am health conscious and have to be extra careful.

Here are a few proposed solutions to overcome these pain points:

Detecting users based on their age as senior citizens should launch a simple UI that is less cluttered and has better accessibility. A few recommendations:

(1) Clearly stating “you are here” instead of just the blue dot can make it apparent to the users about their relative position on the map. It can be removed after a while if we see the users getting used to it

(2) There should be a clear back button instead of the cross to go back to the previous screen

(3) The map overlay as the background makes it feel very cluttered. There should be a plain UI asking destination with the option of “point it on the map” which can then open the map layout

(4) The font has to be bigger by default instead of asking the users to change it from their settings for better accessibility

(5) Removing unnecessary options like weather, satellite view, street view should be hidden as they are probably not the most used features of the target audience. If the data tells us otherwise we can introduce them

(6) Storing saved places as a simple list instead of too many options like “wishlist” “favorites” etc. The search bar can also show these saved places as search recommendations as the user starts typing instead of just recent searches.

These are a few UI changes that I can think of to make it less overwhelming for the users.

(1) Adjusting the speed of the voice assistant to be slightly slower (allowing users to control it) and maybe using the native English accent to pronounce places better, can assist users while driving instead of having to read the screen. Eventually, it can be translated to different local languages as well

(2) Leveraging the AR/VR Kit on devices can make the routes more accessible. Turns or flyover exits can be confusing but an overlay like an arrow pointing to the exact street or turn or change of color of that entry point on the map can make it easy to recognize places and take the right directions

(3) A senior citizen usually goes to parks, hospitals, markets, and banks. The users can be shown contextual notifications based on learned user behavior. So if we know that the user goes for an evening walk or has an appointment, we can notify them to leave at a specific time to avoid heavy traffic or to reach in time. This can be further extended to showing categories based on when the user opens the app. So if the app is opened around 5-8 am. “Parks” can be shown as the most prominent filter

(4) Senior citizens may want to explore nearby places especially if they have moved to a different city. They can’t/shouldn't do a lot of things and don’t need to be bombarded with a lot of choices. Recommending options personalized to their lifestyle is crucial. They value safety, good amenities, and proximity. So for example, when recommending a restaurant we should show options that are probably only healthy. This may cause their loved ones to also use the app when they plan to take them along for an outing

(5) Data sharing with loved ones is crucial for instilling peace of mind for both parties. If the senior citizen is using Google Maps their loved ones will be aware of their whereabouts. This data will live only for 24 hours so that there are no concerns around privacy. An option of SOS will be on the navigation screen for easy access to alert in case something goes wrong. This feature can later be linked with fitness devices that will trigger the SOS if it detects something beyond normal levels

(6) Senior citizens believe in a sense of community. That is one of the biggest reasons they don’t move to newer cities. But if they can find similar folks who can be their tea buddies or walking partners, it becomes an enjoyable experience. If we can recommend them to nearby groups, maybe in the same apartment complex or a nearby yoga studio or people who go to the same park, it can fulfill their need for social connection.

The next step is to prioritize these solutions on a roadmap. The approach I'd like to take is using the RICE framework. The UI changes and speech speed (#1 and #2) seem to be very simple on the effort scale and can be quick wins. The prototypes can be user-tested to get early feedback as it is a drastic UI change. #3 also has to be significantly tested because we don’t want to overwhelm our users with too many items on the screen. Also, AR needs good lighting, proper internet connection to work accurately. Keeping these in mind it can be deprioritized at least from MVP. #4 and #5 Notifications seem to be an easy win and can feel personalized. We can start with an initial rule engine which can later get better with more usage. As the recommendation gets better we can show categories/recommendations that are personalized based on the user. #6 seems to be an easy win. As for #7, building a platform to discover groups seems fairly easy and also proves contextual based on user behavior. Integrating with fitness devices can be a part of the 18-month roadmap as it needs users to wear devices that most senior citizens are not keen on. Also, there can be concerns about data privacy.

Therefore to summarise we can focus on features (#1, #2, #4, #6, and #8) to start with and then evolve the roadmap from our learnings with both qualitative and quantitative data.

How will we measure success:

(a) How many people are clicking on the notifications and returning to the app?

(b) WAU - where active is defined as coming to the app and searching for a place

(c) How many people are turning the data sharing option on?

(d) How many people can enter the destination correctly?

(e) How many people can navigate to the desired destination in the desired time?

(f) How many people are discovering and joining recommended groups

(g) 30-day retention rate.

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