Senior Product Designer Challenge. (Edited on April 27th)
<aside> ⚠️ This document has no professional rigor. My goal with it is to help you understand how my "thinking" works and how I execute design proposals.
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“Convert new users into premium users.”
We want the app to be functional even for users who haven't subscribed to the premium plan. Ultimately, the app must demonstrate its value within the first few minutes through its free version or a trial period. If it fails to do so, the user will likely abandon the app. But, first of all, let me share some thoughts with you before getting into work
First of all, I'd like to discuss this concept: on Spotify, it's the song; on Twitter, the tweet; and for Netflix, it's the movie. This minimal unit should be provided without interruptions to maintain a high-quality service and retain a significant number of free users. Retaining quality users presents an excellent opportunity to understand how they interact with your product. The free version can help us identify the actions a user needs to complete to become a premium subscriber.
The value the user pays for must be clear, substantial and simple to communicate. Could an average user explain it to another user in a simple way?
To maintain clarity, I believe it's crucial that the value proposition doesn't get diluted with a long list of small and insignificant features. I wouldn't offer benefits that deviate from the core product's purpose (in this case, watching series and movies). In summary, by focusing on what matters and removing noise, we can simplify the user's decision-making process.
I'm not an expert in premium business models, but to simplify, I believe we can discuss these two:
Access to the core content (the cake 🥧): This is what the user comes here for: series and movies. It could be limited by usage (e.g., one film a day) or content type (e.g., exclusive paid content, premiere content...). It's crucial here to understand what the competitors offers for free. Maybe your content is better than the competitor's. Otherwise, your content might not be enough to differentiate yourself from the rest, and this is where the next point comes in.
Access to the extra features (the topping 🍒):
Extra features provide a better experience for a specific group of users. As a counterpoint, you need to think well about timing introducing them to users. Otherwise, you could run the risk of the feature not being understood..