At Google, I had the opportunity to work within the Finance Works team designing internals tools that are used by hired vendors and Googlers. While I can not speak exclusively about the products I worked on I can provide some insight into my experience working with different teams and how I applied my UX expertise on the job.

Design approach, libraries, & tools

My main tool of use was Figma for designs and Lucid Chart for user flows, which demonstrate the actions taken to accomplish a certain task within the tool based on the requirements sited by engineers and BSAs. Google has a number of design libraries that pertain to different teams and sectors within the organization. All designs were created with the CorpEng design library which had its own website with documentation on how to use and manipulate these components for your designs.

In some instance I was designing features that were not accounted for in the CorpEng library and had to locate specific components in another internal design library or apply Google Material. As a designer, I would use the libraries to create mockups to show in meetings with Engineering and BSA teams. I'd take notes of insights from the design review and iterate to improve upon the previous design.

Deliverables

• User and task flows - Created in Lucid chart to clarify, confirm, or discuss user journeys in relation to the feature we are trying to implement

• Designs mockups - I would create mockups in Figma using the design library components to share with development and get feedback from their POV as well as BSA input.

• Presentations - The best way I found of delivering my work was through creating decks in Figma with the latests designs with call outs about placement and reasoning for the layout/functionality of the design. I discovered this was a very effective way of delivering my designs and reasonings.

• Prototypes - I created a prototype in Figma that was then exported to an internal staging tool that allowed me to conduct user test sessions with Googlers.

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Challenges

The budget for additional resources such as more designers was not available on the products I worked on and as a result it often fell on my domain to design based on priority. These priorities were ordered based on time and scope of engineering capabilities. I was the only designer who was 100% on these projects so I sought out reviews and advice from other designer in both Google and Media.monks which proved me helpful in modifying designs to suit both engineering and BSA requests. Also finding time for all parties to be involved in a meeting had its own challenges since people had very busy schedules so often Google Chat was the main source of communication and getting answers to questions.

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Cross-functional team collaboration

Its important to know that when I began work here that I was joining a small team that had a working product but no real designated UX designer outside of my supervisor who was a lead interaction designer. These tools had already been built, deployed, and now needed user experience attention for new functionality requests. This usually came from the BSAs who I would meet with weekly to discuss the in and outs of their proposed wants and how feasible that was to fit in the current tool. Engineering would be present as well to provide their opinion and expertise on whether designs for plausible or out of scope.

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User testing

I did have the opportunity to create a prototype and perform user tests on one the tools that I worked on to gather insight into its reception by real life users. I along with another UX Designer set up 10 user sessions in which I used script of question to collect feedback on my designs. I helped create the script and the questions to pose during the sessions that touched on the usability of the design to the layout of features. Understandably, some users were receptive to the new designs while others were more guarded of the current design due to the length of time they have been using it. This findings were put in a slide deck outlying my approach and insight pulled from the tests. Additionally, recommendations were sited for future refinements as well possible features mentioned as beneficial for users.

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Takeaways

My time on this project could have gone on further and I wish another designer could have come onboard to further these tools to be the best they could be for user experience but funding cuts caused my role on these projects to come to an end. I left a with a stronger sense of strategy an confidence working with designs systems. Having a designated component library makes it much easier and quicker to create mocks and iterate designs. The user testing I conducted provided a valuable asset in assessing the usefulness and the information collected from it proved to be fascinating by the client. It further proves that getting early initial user views on new product features benefits everyone in the evolution to make products better.

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