Choosing Success Metrics and a Primary Measure for Google Photos

You are a product manager on Google Photos, Google's app for backing up, organizing, searching, editing and sharing photos and videos. What metrics would you use to judge whether the product is succeeding? Explain how you would organize them, which single metric you would rely on most, and how that metric could mislead you. ```hint Measure the job, not the app open Think about what people actually rely on the product for, such as keeping memories safe, finding a particular photo later, or sharing an album, and ask which behavior shows that job was done rather than that the app was merely opened. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Are we measuring Google Photos as a whole, or one part of it such as backup, search, memories, sharing or editing? - Is success mainly about user value and engagement, or does paid storage through Google One subscriptions count toward it? - Should the metrics treat Android, where Photos often comes preinstalled as the gallery, the same as iOS and the web? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A product goal grounded in what users get from Photos (a safe backup, finding and reliving memories, sharing) and in Google's broader strategy. - Metrics organized along the user journey or lifecycle, each with a precise definition and time window. - A justified primary metric that reflects delivered value rather than raw app opens, with the input metrics that drive it. - Guardrails and blind spots, including users who rely on Photos only for backup, privacy and trust, storage-limit pressure, and effects on other Google products. ### Follow-up Questions - Your primary metric rose after a new auto-generated memories feature launched, but complaints about unwanted resurfaced photos also rose. Was the launch a success? - How would your metrics change if leadership made paid storage subscriptions the top goal? - Weekly active users fell while the volume of new backups stayed flat. What would you investigate first?