Google Earth
2016 - 2017
I was a young girl when Google Earth first launched. I remember spending hours with my dad exploring corners of the globe we'd never been to from the giant Compaq in our tiny kitchen. It fed my curiosity and love of this amazing planet. After many many months of love, sweat, and tears, my team and I are overjoyed to give you the new Google Earth. This dramatic update lets users explore their world in new ways through rich curated stories in Voyager and our beautiful improved 3D imagery. Users can also play with I'm Feeling Lucky and Postcards to further fuel their wanderlust.
Background: This beloved product had many known UX issues, wasn’t visually aligned with Google’s other core products, and had a clear opportunity to address the needs of its most passionate users, while taking steps towards further user base growth.
Goal: Launch a new experience across web, Android, and iOS
Target users: Armchair explorers, educators, and students
My role: As the lead designer, I was responsible for all UX/UI design, working closely with visual designers to ensure alignment with Google Maps and Google design language, inventing new components where necessary, planning and overseeing all user research, crafting overall product strategy with my PM partner, directing all design work done by B-Reel agency designers, facilitating brainstorms and co-creation sessions, and working closely with marketing on all app store and social materials.
USER RESEARCH & CO-CREATION
User research played a critical role in our team uncovering key insights throughout the design and development of the redesigned Google Earth. I felt it was particularly important to uncover the needs and pain points of our most ardent Google Earth users—educators and students. Early on I designed and facilitated co-creation workshops with educators and students from across the U.S. and Canada. This, along with 1:1 interviews, allowed us to uncover user needs and product ideas around Google Earth creation tools and new Voyager story formats. Throughout the product development process, I also drove and oversaw user testing of search, Voyager, My Places, Knowledge Cards, and I’m Feeling Lucky across platforms to ensure we were designing an optimal experience and getting the details right. Finally, I regularly prepared and disseminated research findings to our cross-functional Google Earth team in partnership with UX research to get buy-in for product changes and increase empathy across the group.
A co-creation workshop I led with school teachers who regularly use Google Earth in their lessons
Google Earth’s Voyager feature lets users browse thousands of rich stories that take them all over the world
GROWTH ACROSS PLATFORMS
While Google Earth, pre-redesign, was loved by many users, we saw a clear opportunity to improve its capabilities, look and feel, content, and connection to the Google ecosystem. As the UX design lead, I grew the Google Earth design system to have a more seamless 3D imagery browsing (Search) experience, rich storytelling (Voyager), and content creation (My Places). A critical part of enhancing the Google Earth product was the new Voyager feature which allows users to explore rich stories that take them around the world told by 1P and 3P content partners. I created Voyager story concepts in collaboration with 3P partners such as architect Maya Lin, National Geographic, and NYTimes. I collaborated with Ubilabs to created a scaled design system that could be applied by these partners easily, resulting in the production of thousands of Voyager stories to date. In an effort to further modernize Google Earth, I oversaw visual design of illustrations, color palette, icons, on-map pins, and app icon, completing a new look, aligning it with Maps products. To further connect Google Earth to Google’s product ecosystem, I collaborated closely with the Google Earth VR team to ensure future product alignment and create innovative experience opportunities across platforms. Finally, to set the team up for continued growth and learning, I led post-launch optimizations based on quantitative metrics and qualitative user feedback to better address needs of novice, expert, teacher, and student users.
PHOTOS LAYER
Google Maps users upload countless photos per day to show other users what particular places look like on the outside and the vibe inside. My product manager and I decided there was a unique opportunity to highlight certain types of user contributed photos in Google Earth to help other Google Earth users form a better idea of what it might be like to really be at a place. We wanted this layer to be lightweight and easy to use. The main UX challenge here was getting the right level of density at each map zoom level to be helpful, show activity, but not be so dense that it obscures the base map imagery. You can see a bit of the experience here (left).
ADVENTURE FROM ANYWHERE
Beyond the story-rich Voyager feature and Photos layer, I also collaborated closely with engineering and product to perfect other new Google Earth features like Knowledge Cards, I’m Feeling Lucky, and Postcards with a special focus on mobile.
KNOWLEDGE CARDS
Select a place or do a Search and see informative Knowledge Cards about that place and related places that people also explore in that area. You can use the Fly To button (paper airplane) to zoom down to a place, orbiting around it in 3D.
I’M FEELING LUCKY
Endlessly feed your wanderlust with the I'm Feeling Lucky dice. Tap it and fly to a random location!
VOYAGER STORIES
Explore the world through curated stories told in partnership with parters like BBC, Sesame Street, and the Jane Goodall Institute. These stories are added to the Voyager collection on a weekly basis and are centered around travel, nature, arts, and culture.
POSTCARDS
Easily create and share postcards of the places you visit in Earth with your friends.
Honors & Awards
Google Earth
Webby / Best User Experience / 2018
Webby / People’s Voice Award / Best User Experience / 2018
Webby / People’s Voice Award / Best Data Visualization / 2018
Fast Company's Innovation By Design / Honorable Mention / Websites & Platforms / 2017