Hi Matias! Thanks for doing this AMA. You've been at the forefront of a lot of exciting change at Google, and I was curious about your experience from the management/bureaucracy perspective.
Context: Up until around the time you were hired, Google was famously design-illiterate and rather dismissive of the discipline. Marissa Mayer famously tested 41 shades of blue and made the decision using data, rather than tapping into design knowledge. Now Google is often seen as being at the forefront of design, MD in particular being hailed as a visionary achievement.
Question: In a company that's famously data-driven and (at times) somewhat oblivious to what might generally be called "matters of the heart," how do you and Google's designers get approval for your decisions around Google's UI/UX? Do you need to present an empirical, data-driven component to justify your decisions? What, if anything, do you do to convince your bosses that something like MD is going to have a positive return on investment? How do you translate the value of design into something an engineer or bean-counter can understand?
Hi Matias! Thanks for doing this AMA. You've been at the forefront of a lot of exciting change at Google, and I was curious about your experience from the management/bureaucracy perspective.
Context: Up until around the time you were hired, Google was famously design-illiterate and rather dismissive of the discipline. Marissa Mayer famously tested 41 shades of blue and made the decision using data, rather than tapping into design knowledge. Now Google is often seen as being at the forefront of design, MD in particular being hailed as a visionary achievement.
Question: In a company that's famously data-driven and (at times) somewhat oblivious to what might generally be called "matters of the heart," how do you and Google's designers get approval for your decisions around Google's UI/UX? Do you need to present an empirical, data-driven component to justify your decisions? What, if anything, do you do to convince your bosses that something like MD is going to have a positive return on investment? How do you translate the value of design into something an engineer or bean-counter can understand?
Thanks again for your time and your work!