Adrienne Klum & Spencer Syfrig, Practicing Playful Creation (Passion Projects)

Maggie Stanphill, Director of UX at Google talks about her efforts in Digital Wellbeing. How this became a focus in the tech industry, and what is Google doing to contribute? I hope you enjoy the episode.

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

What does the term “creative collaboration” mean to you? What do you need to consider when the things you create are seen in the seams of people’s day? How do the images we see everyday impact our living experience? Join us as we explore these Questions with Emily Blank, Art Director on Google’s Material Design team.   Handy links for this episode: The Canvas Project by Google Cloud   Meet our guest: Emily Blank works to create impactful imagery on Google’s Material Design team. She’s previously worked at Apple, Bloomberg, and Billboard. Photo in episode art is by Jess Bonham

From prototyping futures to designing artifacts solely for discussion, tune in to explore the idiosyncratic—but important—field of speculative design. In this episode, host Travis Neilson sits down with Philip Battin and Curtis Flanagan from Seed Studio, a Google design team working on future-forward creative concepts for human-centered technology. In this intriguing conversation, the trio unpack what it means to rehearse the future to inform the present. Handy links for this episode:Explore “A Space for Being” from Salone del Mobile in Milan 2019Read Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming by Anthony Dunne and Fiona RabyWatch HER on Google Play Meet our guests:Philip Battin currently leads strategic design and innovation for Seed Studio. Previously he worked as a design strategist on Google Glass at Google X. Curtis Flanagan is an art director at Seed Studio. Before joining Google, he was a senior designer at Red Antler and Ideas On Purpose.

What makes a portfolio stand out? Why is the design exercise necessary? What exactly is a “noogler” and how do you become one? In this episode, host Travis Neilson talks with Google Design Manager Mike Buzzard about the seven phases of the Google UX hiring process. Along the way, hear audio clips of designers describing their own stories of applying to work at Google. From overcoming the fear of submitting an application, to demystifying the full-day of on-site interviews, listen in for a comprehensive breakdown of all the hiring quirks you need to know. Handy links for this episode: Submit an applicationStay up to date with the latest from Google Design Meet our guest:Mike Buzzard is a design manager at Google, currently collaboratively shaping the UX Community and Culture initiative. In his personal capacity, Buzzard also acts as a design advisor to A Capital, Fuel Capital, and Stitch Labs.  

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.

From scaling an idea into a viable product to building a design tool that optimizes collaboration with developers, tune in to part three of our series on passion projects. In this episode, host Travis Neilson interviews Matthew Levine, a UX lead and engineer at Google, to discuss the origins of Gallery and the tension between finding a passion-worthy problem and developing the necessary skills to solve it. Handy links for this episode:Get an overview of GalleryDownload Gallery for AndroidDownload Gallery for iOS Meet our guest:Matthew Levine is a UX engineer at Google, currently overseeing the Gallery product. Prior to joining Google, he was the principal of Infocraft and led web development at Technorati.

In part two of our series on passion projects, host Travis Neilson interviews two Google UX designers to discuss their creativity-boosting workshop. From inventing new uses for unconventional objects to focusing on the process instead of the solution, tune in as Adrienne Klum and Spencer Syfrig unpack how listening, collaborating, and playing leads to wildly creative problem solving. Meet our guests:Adrienne Klum is a UX design manager at Google, currently working on Google Drive. Previously she worked as a senior product designer at CA Technologies. Spencer Syfrig is a product designer on the Google Drive team. Before joining Google, he led product design at GoFundMe.

From envisioning creative tools to helping new UXers navigate the developing world, tune in to part one of our three-part series on passion projects. In this episode, host Travis Neilson interviews Adam Argyle, a UX engineer at Google, about his journey creating the design tool VisBug, the connection between passion and empathy, and fervently advocating for an idea—even when you encounter challenges along the way. Handy links for this episode: Play in the VisBug sandboxDownload the VisBug extensionRequest a VisBug feature Meet our guest:Adam Argyle is a Chrome CSS developer advocate at Google. Previously he worked as a front end architect at Deloitte Digital.     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.  

In this special crossover episode, Google Method shares an interview from Design Notes—a show about creative work and what it teaches us. Taped at Google Design’s 2018 SPAN Helsinki conference, host Aaron Lammer interviews Isabelle Olsson about her journey to becoming an industrial designer and the intricacies of crafting the design language for Google Hardware. From learning the basics of design from her grandfather (a self-taught industrial designer) to her fascination with materiality and color, tune in as Olsson discusses why it’s critical for designers to be inspired by the context in which products live. Meet our guest: Isabelle Olsson leads industrial design for Home, Wearables, and Color, Material, Finish (CMF) across all Google Hardware. Before joining Google, she was an industrial designer at Fuseproject and OSM.   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.