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Exploring Design @ Google - Doug Fox
February 16, 2012
Introduction: Today’s post is a continuation of our
Exploring Design @ Google
blog series which highlights the work of the user experience (UX) team at Google. The user experience team is a multi-disciplinary team of designers and researchers who collaborate with engineering and product management to create innovative, usable, great-looking products that people love to use. The mantra of the the team is: "Focus on the user and all else will follow." Each week, we will feature a different Googler on the team and talk to them about their role, their background and what they love about working for Google. For today’s post, we sat down for a few questions with Doug Fox, a
user experience researcher
on the
Google Analytics
team.
What does user experience mean to you?
Doug Fox:
I think our Google Analytics UX lead defines it best with the notion of “wow, delight, and love”. For any given product, it is important that the first impression has that wow factor. Something that makes you take notice and want to use it. After the wow factor, it is important that it is designed well enough to be delightful. Meaning that the product is designed easy and effective enough that users enjoy it and want to keep using it. Finally, the true measure of a good user experience is love. After using it for a prolonged period of time, users should cringe at the idea of the product you designed being taken away (like how I feel about
Google Maps for Mobile
!).
How does your role fit into the larger team?
DF:
Simply put, my job is to help the Google Analytics team understand how to design for our users. Web analytics products such as Google Analytics have a wide range of users with varying needs. It is my job to make sure we are meeting those needs. To do this, I conduct research using different techniques and then inform other members of our team (project managers, designers and engineers) what parts of the design are working well and what could be improved.
Tell us about a day in the life of a researcher.
DF:
There is no typical day in the life of a researcher, especially at Google. In any given day, I could be working on a variety of projects. At its core, my days are filled with two agendas: learn and communicate.
I am constantly talking with team members to learn about projects, investigating the latest research findings in my field or interacting with our users to see how they are using our product. Never in my life did I think I would know about Customer Lifetime Analysis or Cookie Churn. As a researcher, you do what it takes to better understand a topic of interest that will make the user experience better.
Your learnings are useless without the ability to communicate them back to the team. I communicate research findings back to the team or company through meetings, presentations, reports and visuals. To be an effective communicator, my reports have included everything from a comic strip to show how users interact with each other to highlight videos from user sessions that reveal frustration or satisfaction in our products.
How does a researcher work with engineers?
DF:
The great thing about Google is that teams are formed with people across multiple roles (engineers, project managers, designers, etc.). Couple that with the fact that we have an open work environment and it is very easy to work together and collaborate.
Many of the engineers on the team are stakeholders on the research projects that I conduct. Thus, they attend research planning meetings or presentations of findings. Based on these findings we then work together as a team to determine how to best design the product.
What is the most interesting project to date that you have worked on?
DF:
I recently conducted a project for the
Google TV
team to help define future remote designs. You know it is going to be a fun project when your job is to observe how people watch TV! Part of the project had users designing their own TV remote through a participatory design. It involved all members of a household, so it was interesting to see the differences and similarities between a teenager’s remote and that of a less tech savvy parent. This showed us just how challenging it is to design a remote that is meant for such a diverse population of television viewers.
What was your path to Google?
DF:
My path was fairly direct. I did two
internships
at Google as a graduate student. After getting my master’s in experimental psychology in 2009 and before I started my PhD, I interned at Google. I worked on projects related to small to medium business advertising and Google TV. In 2010, I did another internship at Google working with the Google Analytics team. The Google Analytics team was a great fit for me, so I decided to rejoin the team after graduating with my PhD in 2011.
What did you study in school to prepare you for the world of user experience?
DF:
I earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology as an undergrad, and a master’s and Ph.D. in experimental psychology with a focus on human factors. The specific lab that I worked in as a graduate student commonly contracted usability work with companies like Dell & Motorola. It was a natural fit for me to work in usability at a tech company like Google.
Members of the UX team have a wide range of backgrounds. Most people don’t think of a psychology major working at Google. However, my social science background coupled with my Human Computer Interaction background has really helped me with the most important part of user experience research, and that is knowing how to effectively learn about the people using your product.
If you were able to go back in time and take a class that you wished you took in college, what would that be and why?
DF:
I wish I had taken more classes in computer science. I took a few, but not enough to have a deep understanding of the field. This sometimes makes it difficult to learn or communicate technical findings to engineers or designers. However, Google’s open culture makes it easy to learn from each other so I am quickly becoming more knowledgeable in this subject.
What do you love most about working for Google?
DF:
I love the freedom of choice at Google. They hire people expecting that they are highly knowledgeable in their respective field. I don’t feel as if I am being micromanaged, and I have the freedom to work on projects that fit my capabilities. You’re encouraged to think outside the box and push your limits. I get to determine the best methodology and have had opportunities to conduct research that I would have never dreamed of doing when I was a student.
Also, it is pretty cool knowing that you work on products that impact millions of people. As a user experience researcher that makes your job more demanding, but it also makes it more rewarding because you actually feel as though your research matters. Working hard as a team to put out a new feature and then watching watching the internet blow up with praise when we have done a good job is pretty exciting.
Posted by Hal Marz, University Programs Specialist
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