Lead UX Designer
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5 month project
I began to look at sessions that contained a random sampling of our top searched terms.
Patterns began to emerge and helped to bring awareness to the differences in our users' goals. it was clear that our current success metrics (clicks on an image) wasn't right, sometimes the user goal was to endlessly scroll without clicking on anything.
I created a user journey map with all of this data. This helped me define where our features made the most sense.
Instead of pushing all of our features onto the same small space, we could expose the functionality when it made sense in the users' processes.
I shared this work with the team and we officially kicked off a redesign effort.
I created different rough sketches to discuss feasibility with the rest of the team.
We narrowed the choices down to three, very different, experiences.
We began to launch a series of A/B tests on the current UI to test out long held beliefs. The PM and I were able to prove that removing meta data and blue borders did not affect the CTR.
I worked closely with UER to run rapid iterative tests on these three concepts. The engineering team was able to create a playground which allowed participants to search for any image they wanted in all three UIs.
We'd make refinements after every few sessions and eventually ended up with two options to bring to the executive team.
We had approval to launch an infinite scroll and introduce an intermediary interaction 'full-size image', which allowed the user to bypass the landing page.
The new landing page removed the frame and showcased the image and additional Google features. We also gained approved to experiment with experiences that pushed the envelop in other countries to start collecting data.
The metrics were overwhelmingly positive and the new UX rolled out globally. The strong results (including significantly higher engagement, increased time on site, and a substantial lift in long clicks) prompted the Search teams to reconsider the balance between user experience and their overly cautious fear of infringement.
