User Experience Research at Google
Recent UXR work - 2022
I am currently a UX Researcher for Google’s core data products, where I work with other researchers, product mangers, engineers, and designers to ensure Google’s internal tools run smoothly and efficiently. I also work closely with cross-functional partners and stakeholders to understand product roadmaps and determine where further research is needed. Some of my recent work involves quantitative survey analysis, qualitative interviewing, and multi-phase research planning.
Internship Work - 2018
During the summer months in between the first and second years of masters program at the University of Michigan, I enthusiastically moved New York City to accept a role as a UX Research Intern at Google! From starting with observing and moderating studies in the rapid research program for Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, to a part-time intern-only group project, to my main project researching personas for Google Docs and Slides, I learned so much from so many talented and hard-working people at Google. Across these projects, I learned new methods such as UX cognitive walkthroughs and remote card-sorting, along with improving methods already in my toolkit, such as survey analysis and qualitative interviewing.
Timeline:
My research process for persona validation research started with a review of existing research, meeting with others on the team, and participating in brainstorming sessions. Simultaneously, a survey was sent out to users of Docs and Slides to better understand their use cases at a wider scale. Once we had results, I put my quantitative research skills to the test through survey data analysis. To make efficient use of my time, I decided to gather insights from these surveys (one for Docs, one for Slides), by way of a Python program that used SQL statements and custom dictionaries to print insights.
The result of this program helped me decide how to recruit participants, as well as what questions I wanted to ask them when it came time to conduct qualitative interviews. I held these interviews Google's unique space dedicated to UX research called the Userplex. In the last month of my internship, I conducted 20 semi-structured, 45-minute remote user interviews. The first half of each session was devoted to a background interviews and use of Docs and Slides, and the second half involved a card sorting exercise. In this card sort, I asked users to prioritize certain tasks by placing them into categories in hopes of better understanding users' wants, needs, and pain points surrounding the critical user journeys defined by the stakeholders.
My next and final step was to synthesize the findings fr0m each interview, as well as the insights from the survey data, to construct more concrete definitions of each persona, leaving the team with a better understanding of the Docs and Slides users and actionable suggestions to implement to better meet user needs.
While at Google, I also worked on a rapid research program, moderating studies with users to gauge understanding and comprehension of new and developing ideas at Google. For this program, I led discussion and UX walkthroughs for three different topics, then presented my findings from each to the respective stakeholders.
Additionally, I worked with five other interns in the same product-area for a part-time project involving the future of collaboration. As the UX researcher on the team, I took the lead with gathering background research, as well as leading and conducting cafe studies. This was a fun and exciting way to think outside the box, and rapidly research and iterate before presenting a final project proposal to our team.
Overall, my experience at Google this summer was truly incredible. I learned so much, I had a blast in New York City, and I met so many amazing Googlers I hope to stay connected with going forward.
