Design a digital library for kids below 5 years.

Problem Statement:

Design digital library for kids below 5 years

Clarification questions/points:

1)     To be on the same page with the interviewer, we define a digital library as a central online platform where authors publish their books and readers come to read books for free or purchase it.

2)     Scope: We are looking to create a digital library for kids under 5 years.

a.      Assumption taken: We are starting with creating a library that can be accessed over mobiles and tablets as we are designing for kids below 5 years, so they can use it anywhere and anytime.

b.      We will create this library in India starting with English language books.

Goal:

Online digital library that enables readers to come and learn from these books. (In our case kids under 5 years)  

Different user group:

•    Kids under 5 years are the main group that might be using & learning from this digital library. Normally kids at this age are learning many things such as:

o   Start recognizing/learning English alphabets.

o   Start with Phonics to learn correct sound of different alphabets

o   Start with writing of alphabets or 2- and 3-characters words.

o   Learn how to greet others.

o   Improving fine motor skills

o   Learning colors and its identification.

o   Start recognizing basic shapes such as Circle, Square etc.

o   Learn and play different games all day 😊

o   …

And there can be a lot more that this group is busy with the whole day.

• Parents: They are also the main users of this library + they are buyers also (They will select books or purchase paid books) for their kids.

• Other learners which comprise big sections such as teenagers, college students, young professionals etc, etc etc can be users of this digital library.  These users are out of scope for this problem.

• Assumption: For this problem we will only consider the above mentioned 2 types of user: those who are learning/recognizing English alphabets and other one learning phonic sounds.   

Needs of Parents: 

1. As a parent I want to see a list of books available for Kids under 5 years.

2. As a parent I should be able to search for a required book for my kid.

3. As a parent I want to track the learning of my kid.

4. As a parent I want my kid to be engaged with the book so that they keep learning.

5. As a parent I want to be notified if the kid has moved away to any other app on the phone (e.g. any game or youtube) if I am away from the phone. 

6. As a parent I want to download book because I want stop internet on phone so that kid can only focus on the learning

7. I should be able to provide rating to the book

8. I should be able to purchase any paid book.

9. Get suggestions of popular books for the required learning.

For Kids:

In my opinion Kids don't have these kinds of needs on their own (I mean which kid under 5 years wants to study :-), so we need to make sure how we can make them engage and they don't get bored.

Solution for aforementioned needs:

 We will define different solutions and evaluate based on Impact vs effort, Based on this will define priorities for MVP and post MVP.

Based on the above priorities we will go with MVP with free books.
 

Metrics to be track during MVP:

1. No of users (parents) getting signup weekly, monthly

2. No of hours spent on the library (Trade-off: this can discussed as we dont want kids to have high screen time)

3. Number of books saved offline weekly.

North Star Metric: 

1. Number of user signing up on the library

2. Number of books being read on the library.

Summary: We want to build digital library of Kids under 5 years with a goal that kids can learn from this library such as English alphabets and phonics which meets parents' needs.  We will go with the MVP with free books only and features as prioritized in above table.