Product UX Designer

Google Expeditions

Enhanced Search & Discovery · Fall 2016 – Spring 2017

Background

Google Expeditions initially launched with a limited set of virtual field trips that could easily be browsed in a flat list. As the number of field trips grew to hundreds there became a need for improved search/filtering functionalities as well as a scalable organization system. The ability to promote specific field trips was also desired.

My Role

Lead Product Designer
Prototyper
Assistant UX Researcher

Platforms & Screen Sizes

Android mobile and tablet
iPhone and iPad

Goals

Make in-app Expeditions search more powerful and structured
Highlight diverse and changing set of field trips to users
Ensure that new field trips added to the library are surfaced to users

Users

Expeditions users consist of two groups: 1) Guides and 2) Explorers. The experience requires one guide who will be guiding one to many explorers.

The target user group for this feature were Guides, who are typically teachers in a school setting with a broad range of backgrounds and tech savviness. The guide experience is typically conducted on a tablet, however phone-sizes screens are also supported.

Preliminary Research

Preliminary research was conducted with teachers who were current users of Expeditions in order to understand how they currently find field trips and to gain insights into what solutions could possibly be helpful. I also spoke with our internal content creation team.

Teachers

Utilized a mixture of searching and browsing
Searching when they have exact field trip or topic in mind
Browsing (scrolling) when not sure or just exploring
Wish there were suggestions, recommendations and categories/subjects
Wish there were auto-suggest for search
Often revisit the same field trips
Interested in discovering what new field trips are available

Content team

Planning to do batch release of field trips based on themes (e.g. Black History Month, Women’s History Month). Wanted to showcase
Wanted to highlight new and best field trips to users

Determining Requirements

Preliminary research findings were converted into a set of user tasks that this project needed to solve for.

User tasks

“I’m looking for a specific field trip which I know exists with the title [...].”
“I’m looking for a specific field trip which I know exists about the topic [...].”
“I’m looking to discover field trips about the topic [...].”
“I’m looking for field trips I’ve viewed recently.”
“I’d like to see newly added field trips.”
“I’d like to see recommended field trips for me.”
“I’d looking for my favorite field trips.”

Feature set

I then distilled these user tasks into a bucketed feature set for the project which would be used to inform the design solutions needed.

Discovery

Showcase new and best field trips
Categorization of field trips
Showcase recommended field trips
Showcase recently viewed field trips
Showcase special, temporary themes (e.g. Women’s History Month)
Scalable frameworks for future growth

Searching

Suggestions
Recent searches
Auto-complete of queries

Starring

Marking favorite field trips
Retrieving previously marked favorite field trips

Low Fidelity

The proposed solution involved a flexible framework of modules in both the homescreen and search experience that would allow our engineering and content teams to surface appropriate suggestions and recommendations.

Homescreen layout and interactions.

Initial search screen.

Search screen scrolled and keyboard dismissed

Possible landing screen for category view.

User Testing

Remote user testing was conducted with 7 teachers from various parts of the United States. I created semi-functional prototypes with Framer Studio from the wireframe designs so we could test usability and comprehension of the interactions and views. Users were given a series of tasks to complete. The success of the designs was evaluated on whether or not those tasks could be completed.

Prototype - Homescreen layout and interactions.

Prototype - Search view and interactions.