PM Internship

From spring to summer 2021, I interned at Baidu’s YY Live User Growth Team as a product manager for 5 months. The project aims to optimize onboarding experiences for new users who came from other social media platforms. On a high level, I worked on doing user research, defining product roadmaps, conducting usability testing, and ideating design solutions. By the end of my internship, the project achieved an increase of 50K+ daily active users. ‍

Role:
‍Product Manager Intern

Team:
YY Live User Growth Team

Methods:
‍Competitive Analysis
Wireframe
A/B Testing
Data analysis

Tools:
Axure RP Pro
Excel
Xmind

01. Overview

Challenage

YY Live is the most popular entertainment livestream platform in China with 3M+ users. However, data indicates an unexpected decline in DAU (Daily Active Users) of YY Live mobile users.

As a product manager, I had to identify user growth opportunities to bring new users to the product and enhance their retention rate.

Objectives

In response to a drop in YY Live users, I took product management leadership for a 6-month digital solution to pursue the goals of boosting the DAU of mobile users, enhancing new user engagement and retention rate, and introducing the app’s key features to new users.

Achieve DAU growth

Enhance user retention

Introduce key features

Process

In order to reach desired goals, I developed a product strategy to define each stage of the product lifecycle, inform the decision-making process, and ensure that the product can launch smoothly and on time.

01 Growth Opportunities Discovery

02 Design and Develop

Identify user growth opportunities in the new user onboarding journey with the marketing team and conduct competitive analysis.

Collaborate with UI/UX designers and software engineers to design, develop, and launch a new user onboarding experience.

03 Data Mining and Analysis

04 Product Optimization

Conduct A/B testing and analyze the collected data with data analysts to understand user response and develop iteration plans.

Based on the post-launched statistics, iterate the product to enhance user experience and achieve the business goals.

Timelines

One of the main tasks for a product manager is to coordinate teamwork with stakeholders(engineers, designers, data analytics, marketing, and legal) and optimize workflow. Therefore, I crafted product key timelines to bring the User Growth team together and monitor the product development process.

02. Research

user research

Who are target users?

The foremost thing in conducting user research is to identify who the target users are. I collaborated extensively with the marketing team and defined the personas of 2 types of users. I distilled the marketing personas into a brief user statement to avoid bias in design.

The first type of users come from TikTok, and they click on the YY Live advertisements on TikTok, download our product, and use it for the first time.

The second type is Baidu users who regularly use the gamification system on the Baidu App, and they are directed to YY Live by the system.

Competitive Analysis

I wanted to compare how competitors onboard new users on their platforms, so I conducted a competitive analysis of 4 popular livestreaming apps. I compared their features and also analyzed their strengths and weaknesses to understand the market competition, identify user growth opportunities, and find an edge. I discovered that:

Gamification

Monetary Reward

Notification

03. Design

Task Flow

To visualize the task flow of the new user onboarding experience, I created a flow diagram and presented it to the developers and the designers to discuss its feasibility.

Wireframe

Based on the feedback from the designers and developers, I made some alternations to the task flow and wireframed it on Axure RP Pro to show the design of the onboarding pages. Then, I worked closely with the UX design team to turn this wireframe into a high-fidelity prototype.

Visual Design

To personalize the onboarding experience, I collaborated with the UI designers to customize3 visual design styles for different groups of users to create a smooth and visually consistent post-click and onboarding experience.

Product Development

When the product design concept was fully refined, I turned the wireframe into a PRD (product requirement document) to specify the program features, functionalities, and design details and designed A/B tests to collect user data for product iteration.

Then, I scheduled a Product Kickoff with the engineering team to further discuss the product details. Now, the product was ready to be developed.

During the developing phase, I periodically checked in with the developers and answered any questions they might have.

In the testing phase, I walked through the programs with the QA engineers to ensure error-free before launching the program.

04. Iteration

Product Optimization

After the launch of the first version of the program, I wanted to understand our user response to the new onboarding experience, so I designed and executed 5+ a/b tests to evaluate the usability of the new features and then analyzed the post-launched statistics with the data analysts. Testing and iterating kept repeating to enhance user experience with the intention of increasing DAUs.

1. Interactive motion

To make the onboarding experience more immersive, I iterated the task in progress icon by adding interaction and a timer to incentivize users to explore the livestreaming features and return to the app in the next few days.

I conducted A/B testing, in which 50% of the target users saw the new UI, and the rest saw the original interface.

In result, the data indicates that the retention rate of the people visiting the new design increased by 1.3%.

2. Animated UI

The next product iteration is to replace a new UI design and add some animated effects to enhance user experience. The animation was added to the reward deposit page when users successfully complete an assigned task. In the new design, the reward value has a rolling effect, and an animated banner is exhibited at the bottom. The new UI design is a result of the collaboration between the UI designer and me.

Again, I designed an A/B test to let half users see the new design and another half encounter the previous design.

The testing data indicates that the retention rate of those who saw the new interface increased by 0.9 %.

3. New Payment Method

I proposed and led an initiative to onboard WeChat Pay as an alternative deposit method in addition to the existing deposit system, capitalizing on a mobile digital wallet service with 800M+ users to enhance user convenience. As a result, I improved information security by adding a phone number verification step in the deposit process to protect user financial data as well as company private information.

05. Result

Achievements

In a collective effort of the User Growth Team, the project achieved a degree of success in the following 5 areas in less than 5 months.

01.

Boosted DAU by 50K+ in 5 months.

02.

Increased 20K+ new app users.

03.

Enhanced user retention rate by 15%.

04.

Established onboarding experience strategy.

05.

Improved information security.

Key Takeaways

This product management internship exposed me to a complete product lifecycle from discovery and design to development. I gained insights into how different stakeholders play their roles and perform their responsibilities to support the product development process. I was lucky to learn from the people on our team and their work ethics. I acquired not only the essential PM skills, such as conducting user research, writing PRDs, and analyzing data, but also communication and cross-functional skills that will allow me to success in a team setting in the future. I also learned how to think like a PM to solve unexpected problems, make decisions quickly with optimized outcomes, and develop a long-term plan for the product.