Description (what is it?)

echowAlk is a web-based software platform that uses AI-driven text-to-speech functionality to “read aloud” web pages to users.

Problem (what problem is this solving?)

There is an overload of information and content on the internet, and a dearth of both the time and headspace needed to digest it.

Hustle culture has created an expectation that people should always be improving; learning more about their jobs, understanding what’s happening in the world and why, chasing personal and career goals. Then telling people about it.

The above two points mean that people are compelled to parse an endless stream of newsletters, LinkedIn posts, scrolling news feeds etc so they can:

• Be their best selves
• Look great in their jobs
• Get promotions / more money
• Publicly demonstrate their knowledge
• Ultimately; feel good about themselves

These desires create a backlog of “information yet to be processed”, usually in the form of unread web pages as open browser tabs.

Echowalk can solve this problem in various ways:

• Acting as a safe storage for the backlog of unprocessed web pages which … … alleviates the overwhelm of too many open tabs
• Giving people a less intensive medium of learning (being read to, rather than reading)
• Allowing people to choose when / where they consume the information
• Getting people away from scrolling on a phone or stuck at a desk

Why (how do we know this is a real problem and worth solving?)

Personal experience. Also some research (surveyed people from a forum, and spoke to friends) has proved that people do hold open tabs to come back to later.

This research also indicated:

People are overwhelmed with the amount of information they are “expected” to parse, understand and learn People feel a sense of guilt over their “backlog”

Audience (who are we building for?)

Suggestion would be to start with a niche and work outwards. This means marketing, design, publicity etc can be much more focused and more easily directed, rather than aiming something at “everyone”.

Suggestions:

• Tech workers (this would be people like software developers, product managers, graphic designers, web agencies etc). These people usually spend their time at a web browser. They are also often bombarded with newsletters and expected to be a source of knowledge.
• Commuters. Presuming that commuters have relatively long, regular journeys, they could be scrolling on their phone in the morning before the commute, saving tabs to listen to later. Students are often using computers and need to do research / learning. They could stack some tabs up before going to the gym (for example), allowing them more free time.

Opportunities (what problems could we solve here?)

Opportunities are the users’ problems, flipped so they are worded as a positive action we can take. By discovering these opportunities, we can test the success of our solutions - all solutions should be tied back to something on this list.

• Users need to clearly understand WHY they should use it
• Users need to finish listening and feel a sense of achievement
• Users need to be satisfied & content their tabs are saved and can now be closed
• Users need to know what they’ve listened to already
• Users want to share articles with others
• Users want a sense of ownership by rating their experience
• Users want to discard those they didn’t enjoy and save / favourite those they did
• Users want to visually understand what article they’re listening to
• Users want to sign in with other methods; password, facebook, linkedin etc
• Users want to quickly save a tab to listen later
• Users want to easily save unread tabs from their phone

Solutions (how could we address the opportunities?)

Solutions are ways that we could possibly address the opportunities that have arisen from the problems we’ve found. They are ideas that may or may not work, but every platform change should be measurable.

Users need to clearly understand WHY they should use echowAlk

• Change the offer statement. “List urls for playback on the move” is what they have to do, not why. Something like “Beat browser tab guilt. Summarise to audio, listen and learn in your time.”. I also like the phrase “Turn noise to knowledge”.
• Change the page design. Blank page with input box causes anxiety. Users need to understand immediately what they get from the service
• Try a banner header with your offer statement in, and maybe a hero image. Everything should be focused towards relief and personal growth.
• Have an on-page demo of echowAlk working brilliantly. Then ask them for signup. Allowing them to use it first means we don’t get popularity feedback (ie. who actually wants this service and isn’t just messing about)

Users need to clearly understand HOW to use it.

Remove the play button before they save a tab. Users think they need to press it, which causes more anxiety.

• Use words instead of / as well as icons. Increases accessibility, reduces anxiety.

Users need to finish listening and feel a sense of achievement

• A nice finishing jingle, saying something like “You’ve learned about {article title} on echowAlk. Great work!”.
• An animation, marking their url as “Completed” or something.
• Add a survey with a thumbs up / thumbs down, or 3 smiley faces, and track.

Users need to be satisfied & content their tabs are saved and can now be closed

• Every time they add a url, pop a toast saying “Saved! Now close your tab and declutter your life” Change the placeholder to “Paste and save your link”, or “Paste your link to save”
• Add “Saved tabs” title to the list of urls that appear below

Users need to know what they’ve listened to already

• Add a “Already listened” tab, or filter
• Some kind of kudos for the number of their previously listened urls

Users want to share articles with others

• Add a share button on an article and prompt the user to share to linkedin, facey b, all the social networks, slack, whatsapp etc
• After a listen has been completed, pop a message saying “Share your new knowledge with your network”
• Do the above, but with audio

Users want a sense of ownership by rating their experience

• On completion, ask them “How was your experience?”, and try to survey their responses. You can’t improve if you don’t know where it lacks.

Users want to discard those they didn’t enjoy and save / favourite those they did

• Add a favourite button, and a way of easily accessing their favourites.
• Use the results of the survey as a way of indicating their favourites, or vice versa. Can’t be too obtrusive.

Users want to visually understand what article they’re listening to

Instead of a URL being displayed, save a title of the tab from the HTML, and display that. {Website} - {Title} format

Users want to sign in with other methods; password, facebook, linkedin etc

If you’re using a library, add the other methods of sign in

Users want to quickly save a tab on desktop to listen later Add an echowAlk app to the mac or windows app stores Build a browser extension from chrome, then safari and edge, which allows a simple button click to effectively “bookmark” the tab

Users want to easily save unread tabs from their phone Add an echowAlk app to the play/app store

Success (how will we know problems are solved?)

The key metrics to judge success are:

# of repeat visitors to the platform (need an account for this? Or google analytics) # of accounts created (no way to save pages without creating an account?) Number of shares to social media networks or to friends CSAT Survey results (thumbs up or down / smiley faces etc)

3 month OKR

Objective:

Successful product launch

Key Results:

50 regular users (where a regular user is … three times a week?) 50 shares per week CSAT score of 70%

How (what is the experiment plan?)

Experiments are the quickest way we can validate the assumptions that have been made around a solution’s likely impact. Experiments should be measurable, otherwise you’ll never know whether the change helped.

Change the offer statement to something like “Beat browser tab guilt. Summarise to audio, listen and learn in your time.” EXPERIMENT: Change the page. Measure the engagement.

Change the page design. Blank page with input box causes anxiety. Users need to understand immediately what they get from the service. Try a banner header with your offer statement in, and maybe a hero image. Everything should be focused towards relief and personal growth. EXPERIMENT: Change the page. Measure the engagement

Change the placeholder to “Paste and save your link”, or “Paste your link to save” EXPERIMENT: Change it. It’s an easy change.

Add “Saved tabs” title to the list of urls that appear below EXPERIMENT: Change it. It’s an easy change.

[IMPORTANT FOR PLG (Product Led Growth)] Add a share button to an article and prompt the user to share to linkedin, facey b, all the social networks, slack, whatsapp etc EXPERIMENT: Add a fake share button and see if anybody presses it. If they do, pop a message saying “Share coming soon!” and measure the click.

If you’re using a library, add the other methods of sign in EXPERIMENT: Add fake door sign in methods to the sign up screen. Track clicks. Say “Sign in with {bla} coming soon”

When (when does it ship and what are the milestones?) When you get time!