Method Podcast from Google Design
Google Design
All episodes
Best episodes
Top 10 Method Podcast from Google Design Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Method Podcast from Google Design episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Method Podcast from Google Design for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Method Podcast from Google Design episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Sydney Hessel from Design Sprint Team
Method Podcast from Google Design
12/05/17 • 20 min
UX Researcher and Sprint Master Sydney Hessel talks about her unconventional research background, the ins and outs of the sprint methodology, and getting people out of their comfort zones to generate creative ideas.
Rachel Been from Material
Method Podcast from Google Design
11/08/17 • 18 min
Material Design Creative Director Rachel Been on creating a design system at scale, emoji, and the creative power of curiosity.
A few highlights:
On the challenge of making a design system at scale, 1:23
“To create a system that potentially works for thousands of products to use. To define and spec a button that thousands of different product teams could functionally use. It’s a challenge to make that work.”
On becoming a designer, 7:18
“I have a really atypical background. I studied art history in college. I was a photojournalist. I was going to be a photographer. Thought I wanted to be a war photographer.”
On the surprising power of anxiety and curiosity, 14:11
“The anxiety of persistent imposter syndrome—as uncomfortable as that is on a daily basis—has led me to expand my capabilities and feel empowered in many ways. Not coming from a super traditional design background, curiosity was the only way that I could survive in this world and teach myself the skill set needed to do my job.”
Handy info and links for this episode:
- Material Design: A design system, created by Google, for crafting digital experiences
- PgM: Program Manager, the person tracking the day-to-day progress of a project
- Unicode Consortium: A non-profit organization that coordinates the development of the Unicode standard, including emoji
- Roboto: The standard typeface on Android
- Eng: shorthand for “engineering”
- Holo: The design system released with Android 3 and 4, which directly preceded the creation of Material Design
- IC: Individual Contributor, a non-management member of a team
Rachel Been is a San Francisco-based Creative Director currently working on Material Design. Initially hired to be Google Play’s first Art Director, Rachel now works across multiple product teams to implement and evolve the Material Design system.
Roxanne Pinto, Google Flights
Method Podcast from Google Design
04/23/19 • 20 min
In this episode, host Travis Neilson interviews Roxanne Pinto, a content strategist at Google, about the role of UX writing in helping people use—and understand—machine learning-driven products. Listen in as Pinto shares insightful anecdotes about unpacking errors and how mental models shape product interactions and user trust.
Handy links for this episode:Get an overview of Google IOExplore Google FlightsExplore Google Ads Meet our guest:Roxanne Pinto is a content strategist at Google, currently writing UX content for Google Flights and the Google Trips app. Previously she worked as a copywriter at SolutionSet and Hitachi Data Systems.
Jens Riegelsberger of Google
Method Podcast from Google Design
08/21/18 • 22 min
In this episode, Travis Neilson interviews Jens Riegelsberger, a UX Director at Google, about the company’s evolving design identity. Riegelsberger discusses his role in launching Google’s Product Excellence program—an initiative that sets the bar for quality and usability across all Google products—and what it means to build teams that favor multiple perspectives and diverse skillsets.
A few highlights:
On being a good leader“Look at your job as chiefly to enable other people's insights and eureka moments. That doesn't mean abdicating responsibility. It takes actually quite a bit of work to do this well.”
On embracing healthy friction“Frankly, we can't have a static, preordained culture because we work in a field where so much change is happening all the time. So knowing that we all have to negotiate culture and that it's a fluid thing prepares us well for the changes that are coming.”
On the value of “dabbling”“I have a PhD in computer science, but I also taught at art school. So there's this mix of different identities that I’ve had to cobble together. I’ve never deeply believed, ‘Okay, this worldview is the only true worldview; my science or my community knows how it's done,’ because I've always jumped around.”
Handy info and links for this episode:
- Riegelsberger co-authored this whitepaper on a 2013 project aimed at increasing empathy for users. Over the last five years, the project has helped more than 1,500 Google engineers, designers, and product managers immerse themselves in observational research.
- Product Excellence is a Google initiative, started in 2014, that’s working to identify and solve systemic barriers to excellence—by focusing on the user. Download a PDF of the principles to guide your own work.
- Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, developed the company’s first Pagerank algorithm in 1996 at Stanford.
- Global UX research is a rapidly growing field. Here are 10 strategies used by Google’s international research team to build empathy and impact for the next billion users.
Illustrators at Google
Method Podcast from Google Design
09/19/18 • 28 min
In this episode, host Travis Neilson interviews a trio of Google illustrators creating images to inform and delight millions of people around the world. Designer Mat Helme shares insights from his work creating the guidelines for Google’s product illustrations. Motion Designer Laura Dumitru talks about her creative process and the animations she designed for the new Pixel startup sequence. Doodler Hélène Leroux shares the story of her illustrations for Back To The Moon—a Google doodle about filmmaker Georges Méliès, and the first doodle to be nominated for an Emmy.
A few highlights:
On what makes a good product illustration“Immediate comprehension.” — Mat Helme
On the hierarchy of words and images“It's a bit of a competition sometimes, between illustration and copy. We’ve learned that a lot of the time, if you have an animation, people just don't read the copy. It's something we always need to be careful with.” — Laura Dumitru
On the magic of Google doodles
“The logo of a company is normally something untouchable. If you have the freedom to replace the logo with, oh, a dragon who's burning the letters, it's something that you've never seen before. It brings a lot of fun to the brand.” — Hélène Leroux
Handy info and links for this episode:
- “Principles Not Platitudes” is an essay written by Google UX Researcher Jess Holbrook, arguing in favor of measurable and meaningful design principles.
- Back To The Moon is the first Google doodle to be nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Original Interactive Program. Honoring French director Georges Méliès, the short film was directed by Hélène Leroux and Fx Goby. It was produced by Nexus Studios.
- Go behind-the-scenes of Back To The Moon in this video by the doodle team and Google Spotlight Stories.
Mat Helme is a Palo Alto-based visual designer and the lead designer of Google’s product illustration rulebook.
Laura Dumitru is a Google motion designer based in London. Her current work includes illustration and animation for the Pixel phone.
Hélène Leroux is an animator, designer, art director, and film director based in San Francisco. She is currently on Google’s doodle team.
Google UX Interns
Method Podcast from Google Design
09/17/19 • 29 min
Garrett Tolbert, Andrea Davila, and Alex Lim talk to us about life as a Google UX intern.
In this episode, we talk with a trio of UX interns with three very different paths to Google: What led them to their internships? How their experience has changed them. What’s next in their UX journeys?
Handy links for this episode:
Learn about internships at Google
Meet our guests:
Garrett Tolbert – UX Engineering intern at Google
Andrea Davila – UX Writing intern at Google
Alex Lim – UX Research intern at Google
Josh Lovejoy from Google Clips
Method Podcast from Google Design
02/27/18 • 12 min
In this episode, Aidan Simpson interviews UX Designer Josh Lovejoy about the design of the Google Clips camera, building user trust in ‘magical’ products, and ways of using UX to help people feel more in the moment. Learn more about the journeys and creative decisions of designers at Google by subscribing to the Method podcast.
A few highlights:
On overcoming the myths of magic, neutral AI, 10:22
“We can use technology to connect better with the self that we aspire to be. If we can get over some of these myths... I think we are capable of unlocking a renaissance of personal expression and human connection.”
Why the Clips camera still has a photo-capture button, 6:35
“It was a fun internal debate for a long time. We hemmed and hawed and ultimately decided the initial version would not have a button. ...But then as we iterated over time, we found [a button helped build] trust—that bonding relationship between user and a new technology.”
On the beauty of imperfection, 8:26
“When we tried to get things perfect, it actually was really problematic. Even when we hit that goldilocks sweet spot... users still believed that we must have missed something. [Showing more images that users could delete] made a huge difference in confidence level because the user got to be there. They got to be the curator and have the final say.”
On taking an empowering approach, 5:20
“We wanted to build intentionally toward answering the question ‘What is memorable and how can we use technology to help people feel more in the moment?’”
Handy info and links for this episode:
- Google Brain: A team at Google working to advance artificial intelligence through research and systems engineering, part of the overall Google AI effort.
- Google Clips: A wireless smart camera that captures images of familiar people and pets.
Josh Lovejoy is a Seattle-based User Experience Designer in Google’s Experimental Design Group, where he works at the intersection of product design, ethics, and artificial intelligence. Josh also leads UX for People + AI Research (PAIR), a Google initiative to conduct fundamental research, invent new technology, and create frameworks for design in order to drive a humanistic approach to artificial intelligence.
Peter Jin Hong & Scott Wasson, Google Job Search
Method Podcast from Google Design
12/04/18 • 35 min
In this episode, host Travis Neilson interviews two UX designers at Google—Peter Jin Hong and Scott Wasson—discussing the impact of Google Search and how the newly launched Job Search feature is changing the job-seeking landscape. They cover everything from the effect of transactional memory on job hunters to the importance of qualitative research when making UX decisions. Listen in as they talk behavioral science, soft skills, and identity to illustrate how empathy affects the experience of a product like Job Search.
A few highlights:
On fostering empathy“We can truly help humanity if we know what makes us tick, what makes us scared, what makes us inspired, what makes us push ourselves. [Looking for a job] is one of the scariest things in your life—it’s about having agency, and dignity, the ability to stand tall, and feed your family.” – Peter Jin Hong
On being reliable“We want users to be able to trust the jobs that we’re showing them, especially now that we’re getting into recommendations. It affects people’s psyche.” – Scott Wasson
On data-driven design“Good qualitative research is helping our great quantitative research. It’s also referred to as thick data, because qualitative research allows depth in really understanding what people are going through.” – Peter Jin Hong
Do you have a burning question for a designer at Google? Or a story you’d love to hear? Give us feedback in this short survey to help make the show even better.
Todd Hausman of Chrome OS
Method Podcast from Google Design
05/01/18 • 17 min
In this episode, Aidan Simpson interviews UX Researcher Todd Hausman about human side of research, taking career risks, and his work on Chrome OS—the operating system on devices like Chromebook and Acer’s new Tab 10 tablet. Learn more about the journeys and creative decisions of designers at Google by subscribing to the Method podcast on Google Play, iTunes, RSS, or Spotify.
A few highlights:
On the best part of being a researcher
“What I love about being a researcher is that you get this snapshot of someone's life for just a fraction of a moment. You get to see where their pain is, where their strife is, where their hopes are, and their aspirations.”
On overcoming career fear
“Do bold things because what's the worst thing that can happen? You get fired. ...[But] if you got this job, don't you think you can get another one? What often holds us back is the fear of discipline or the fear of retribution. But don’t be afraid.”
On giving honest feedback
“It’s one of the hardest parts of leadership. The people I admire the most are people who can give hard feedback in a way that doesn't feel hurtful or cutting. It feels true and it gives you something to grow on.”
Todd Hausman is a UX Researcher working on Google’s Chrome OS. Todd specializes in ideation in cross-disciplinary teams, participatory design, and ethnographic field studies—especially in emerging markets.
Rich Fulcher of Material Design
Method Podcast from Google Design
05/30/18 • 23 min
In this episode, Aidan Simpson interviews Material Design director Rich Fulcher about the evolution of design tools, the importance of flexibility in a design system, and what it means to design for users who are also designers and developers. Learn more about the journeys and creative decisions of designers at Google by subscribing to the Method podcast on Google Play, iTunes, RSS, or Spotify.
A few highlights:
On designing for designers and developers
"It's a little hard to get a feel for who your users are at the end of the day because you have layers of users. You have the other designers and developers who are going to utilize the system that you're producing. They're going to look at the guidance, they're going to look at the code that you're building, and they're going to use that to satisfy the needs of their users in turn. So that kind of hierarchy of users is always a tricky thing to kind of get one's mind around a little bit."
On the ever-evolving state of design
“We say this same saying many, many times on our team. We say, ‘design is never done,’ and I think we feel that in our hearts all of the time.”
On the challenges of building a design system
"I think some designers approach design systems as, 'Oh, they're making all my decisions for me—they're taking my authorship away. We very much don't think that way. We're trying to provide what we think of as a, a well lighted path of good decisions you can make."
Rich Fulcher is the director of Material Design. He worked with a multi-disciplinary group of designers, researchers, writers, and engineers to build the updated Material Design, which launched earlier this month at Google I/O.
Show more best episodes
Show more best episodes
FAQ
How many episodes does Method Podcast from Google Design have?
Method Podcast from Google Design currently has 30 episodes available.
What topics does Method Podcast from Google Design cover?
The podcast is about Design, Podcasts, Google, Technology and Arts.
What is the most popular episode on Method Podcast from Google Design?
The episode title 'Emily Blank, Canvas Project & Material Design' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Method Podcast from Google Design?
The average episode length on Method Podcast from Google Design is 23 minutes.
How often are episodes of Method Podcast from Google Design released?
Episodes of Method Podcast from Google Design are typically released every 28 days.
When was the first episode of Method Podcast from Google Design?
The first episode of Method Podcast from Google Design was released on Jul 11, 2017.
Show more FAQ
Show more FAQ