Improving comprehension through intuitive actionsIllustration by Mingguo Li, Next Billion Users illustratorI wrote this story with Susanna Zaraysky, a Content Strategist on the Material Design team.“You are not your user” is a common UX mantra and one to keep in mind when designing for maximum user understanding. Starting with the basics: Your users...

Over the past year, I have been coaching a few friends on their job searches and helping them get started in the user experience design field. Through our conversations, I found myself looking back at when I started at Google 10 years ago as a visual designer for Google Chrome and Google Maps, and how I transitioned into my current role as a senior...

Teaching a bell to ring when your pancakes are readyExperimenting with putting teachable technology in everyday objects.Imagine, for a second, that you had a magic bell that you could teach when you wanted it to ring. When would you want it to ring? I have pretty bad posture, so I’d want it to ring every time I slouched, a reminder to sit up straight....

Draft clear content so users know how to take actionIllustration by Alexa Ong, Next Billion Users illustratorI wrote this story with assistance from Luke Easterwood, LeAnn Quasthoff, Jessica Caimi, and Erik Ninomiya, UX writers who have focused on the needs of the Next Billion Users.John Steinbeck said that “Poetry is the mathematics of writing and...

Design for trust by giving users more control over their data usageIllustration by Taylor Herr, Next Billion Users visual designerI wrote this story with Ramprakash Ravichandran, an interaction designer on the Next Billion Users team, and Ted McCarthy, a user experience researcher on internet access projects.Internet access and cost challenges are common...

When teams feel great, they make great products. So we built a team dedicated to the experience of making.At Google, we want our products to exceed expectations, attain our goals, and improve the lives of our global users. To make that happen, the teams that make them have to be exceptionally well-prepared and well-connected.In other words, if we want...