Author Archives: Molly

Coworkers become allies while working from home

When Shammi Quddus joined Google in 2018, she noticed she didn’t run into many other Muslims. “There are so few of us, statistically speaking,” she says. She decided to join the Muslims@Google group, part of the Inter Belief Network run by Googlers to empower employees to voice and practice their beliefs. She was especially impressed by the Muslim Allyship Course the group runs, which explains the basics of the faith, and how non-Muslims can be helpful allies. She soon signed up to be an instructor herself.  “Our faith practices, like daily prayers and fasting, intersect with the workplace quite a bit,” Shammi explains. 

The course was designed in 2017 by a group of Muslim Googlers, including Sarmad Gilani. “Throughout my life, I’d had bad experiences when people found out I was Muslim,” Sarmad says. That’s why he decided to join Muslims@Google, and help create a space where people could ask questions and learn to be good allies. Demand for the course grew so rapidly instructors could hardly keep up.

The program’s momentum was encouraging, if slightly limited. The Bay Area-based group would meet every month, booking rooms at the Mountain View and Sunnyvale offices for 40 to 60 people for their panels. Every time a session was added, so many people subscribed that they had to create a waitlist. “We were trying to think about how we would start in other hubs like Seattle or New York, but that requires a critical mass of four or five Muslim Googlers to serve as instructors and panelists, and manage other on-site needs,” says Shammi. 

  • A group of people sit in a cafeteria at dining tables, eating together. Screens at the head of the room read: “Ramadan Kareem” and “Google.”

    Googlers celebrating Ramadan together in 2018.

  • A person wearing an apron stands in front of a group, speaking. The person is behind a table with cooking utensils on it. Everyone wears an apron

    Muslims@Google hosting a halal cooking class.

  • Three people wearing aprons stand near a table with ingredients and cooking utensils on it.

    Participants in the halal cooking class.

While considering their next move, COVID-19 struck. They’d already been interested in livestreaming classes, but the idea of being online-only was nerve-wracking. “We worried people would get bored, or wouldn’t ask any questions,” Shammi says. “What if the Meet call was full of awkward silences?!” 

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case — in fact, online sessions and meetings helped classes grow significantly. “Our pool of instructors and attendees has no geographic boundary — we have Googlers from all over the world signing up!” Shammi says. While the group has missed some of the intimacy, safety and connection of in-person meetings, they’re making use of interactive features like polls and questions to engage their online audiences. “Google Meet’s ‘raise hand’ feature is awesome!” Sarmad adds.

Shammi’s noticed more interesting questions being asked, too. “Some folks will ask why I wear the hijab, and I’ll share my journey of wearing it in the U.S. and Bangladesh,” she explains. “And then it gets really interesting when there are other hijabis in the panel who have different motivations and experiences. It just shows how diverse we are.” 

Amina Gerrbi joined Muslims@Google after COVID hit. She’s now one of the allyship leads and regularly checks in with participants. “We ask how they feel about certain topics, and even do quizzes sometimes. Engaging an audience for an hour and a half is challenging so having those moments that call for the audience to participate are crucial.”

Sarmad says the best part of online courses is they no longer have to turn anyone away. “That had become an issue with the in-person courses, because we wouldn’t have enough seats.” Since fall 2020, nearly 600 people have registered for online sessions, where the group has helped bring events like their Ramadan Fast-a-Thon, where Googlers can participate in fasting for a day, online. The Fast-a-Thon supports hunger relief efforts and is also an invitation to learn more about Ramadan; this year it's raised $190,000 and counting.

For Muslims everywhere, and at Google, faith is an important part of their identity, and being able to share this with colleagues all over the world has been a silver lining during the pandemic. “I love getting the chance to share personal authentic stories about growing up as a Muslim American woman and genuinely connecting with our participants,” Amina says. “And at the same time, we’re really working to break stereotypes and bust myths.”

This new emoji has been years in the making

When Jennifer Daniel, Google’s creative director for emoji, first joined the Unicode Technical Committee, she wondered, what’s the deal with the handshake emoji? Why isn’t there skin tone support? “There was a desire to make it happen, and it was possible to make it happen, but the group appeared to be stuck on how to make it happen,” Jennifer says.

Image shows a texting keyboard with various hand emojis with the Black skin tone, except the handshake emoji, which is yellow only.

So in 2019, she submitted the paperwork for Unicode to consider the addition of the multi-skin toned handshake.The proposal detailed how to create 25 possible combinations of different skin tones shaking hands. But encoding it all would be time-consuming; creating a new emoji can take up to two years, Jennifer explains. And while a regular, one-tone handshake emoji already existed, this particular addition would require making two new emoji hands (a right hand in all the various skin tone shades and a left in the various skin tone shades) in order to, as Jennifer explains, “make the ‘old’ handshake new again.” 

Every Unicode character has to be encoded; it’s like a language, with a set of rules that are communicated from a keyboard to a computer so that what you see on your screen looks the way it’s supposed to. This is called binary — or all the ones and zeros behind the scenes that make up everything you see on the internet. 

Every letter you are reading on this screen is assigned a code point. The Letter A? It’s Unicode code point U+0041, Jennifer says. When you send a word with the letter “A” to someone else, this code is what ensures they will see it. “So when we want to send a ?,  which maps to U+1f926, that code point must be understood on the other end regardless of what device the recipient is using,” she says.

This means when one emoji can come in different forms — like with gender or skin tone options — the coding gets more complex. “If emoji are letters, think of it this way: How many accent marks can you add to a letter? Adding more detail, like skin tone, gender or other customization options like color, to emoji gets more complicated.” Adding skin tone to the handshake emoji meant someone had to propose a solution that operated within the strict limitations of how characters are encoded.

That someone was Jennifer. “I build on the shoulders of giants,” she quickly explains. “The subcommittee is made up of volunteers, all of whom are generous with their expertise and time.” First, Jennifer looked at existing emoji to see if there were any that could be combined to generate all 25 skin tone combinations. “When it appeared that none would be suitable — for instance, ? ? are great but also a very different greeting — we had to identify new additions That’s when we landed on adding a leftwards hand and a rightwards hand.” Once these two designs and proposals were approved and code points assigned, the team could then propose a multi-skin toned handshake that built on the newly created code for each hand.

Image showing the handshake emoji in various skin tones and skin tone combinations.

Aside from the actual coding, COVID-19 added new hurdles. Jennifer had proposed the emoji in November 2019 with the expectation it would land on devices in 2021, but because of COVID-19, all Unicode deployments were delayed six months. 

Fortunately, the multi-skin toned handshake emoji should appear in the next release, Emoji 14.0, meaning you should see it appear in 2022. For Jennifer, it’s exciting to see it finally come to fruition. “These kinds of explorations are really important because the Unicode Consortium and Google really care about bringing inclusion into the Unicode Standard,” she says. “It’s easy to identify ‘quick solutions’ but I try to stop and ask what does equitable representation really look like, and when is it just performative?”  

“Every time we add a new emoji, there’s a risk it could exclude people without our consciously knowing it,” Jennifer explains. “The best we can do is ensure emoji continue to be as broad, flexible and fluid as possible. Just like language. Just like you. ?”

Ask a Techspert: How can we fight energy rush hours?

Editor’s Note: Do you ever feel like a fish out of water? Try being a tech novice and talking to an engineer at a place like Google. Ask a Techspert is a series on the Keyword asking Googler experts to explain complicated technology for the rest of us. This isn’t meant to be comprehensive, but just enough to make you sound smart at a dinner party.

Returning from a weekend trip this past winter, my husband and I watched in real time as our security camera cut to black and our Nest app reported the thermostat had lost power. The entire neighborhood had no electricity...thanks to an ice storm that caused a tree in our very own backyard to fall. We returned to a dark, cold home, which stayed that way for two days until the power company made their way through downed trees and ice to reconnect us.

Suddenly, the lights turned on, the internet came back and best yet, we heard the gentle whir of the heater. We blasted the heat — and I have to imagine the homes around us did, too. That likely created an “energy rush hour,” something the Nest team is working on reducing through its Rush Hour Rewards program, which works with utility companies to reward you for saving energy using your Thermostat. Nest is currently celebrating Earth Day with a discount: You can get the Nest Thermostat for $99, which coupled with utility rebates could make the thermostat free for people in certain areas. 

But what exactly creates or constitutes an energy rush hour? And what role do utility companies play? 

I turned to Hannah Bascom, head of energy partnerships for Google Nest. Her job is to find ways for Google to partner with energy companies and services...and this week, to also answer my questions. 

Let’s start with the basics: Tell me about energy rush hours! 

Certain times of the year, especially when it’s very hot or cold, everyone cranks their A/C or heat in addition to all of the usual energy-consuming things we already do, so demand for energy is very high. We call these energy rush hours.

Image showing a hand adjusting a Nest Thermostat on a wall next to a circular mirror.

Then my neighborhood definitely created an energy rush hour this winter during the ice storm. So when everyone cranks their heat or A/C, what do the utility companies do?

 When demand for energy spikes, utility companies typically turn on additional power plants — which are often very expensive and emit a lot of carbon dioxide. And as more people need increasing amounts of energy in their homes and businesses, energy rush hours happen more frequently. We’ve seen several examples of brownouts recently — utilities didn’t have enough power to supply everyone, so they had to shut off power in certain places. As extreme weather events become more common this could happen more regularly, so utilities are considering building more power plants, which is costly and could increase carbon emissions.

But it doesn’t have to be that way! Utilities can incentivize customers to use less energy.

How? I can’t imagine not blasting my heat when it was so cold. 

Nest’s Rush Hour Rewards is one way people automatically lower energy use during energy rush hours without being uncomfortable in their homes. Think about using GPS during a traffic jam: You’re sitting on the highway and it reroutes you to side roads to get around the gridlock. You reach the same destination, you just took a slightly different way. Rush Hour Rewards is like that: Nest reroutes your home’s energy usage during times of grid congestion, but you still reach your destination — which in this case is your comfort level.  

When you enroll in the program, your thermostat will use less energy during times of high demand, but you’ll stay comfortable. And you get rewarded by your utility company because they don’t have to fire up additional generators. That reward could come in the form of bill credits or a sent check. You may even be able to get an instant discount on a Nest Thermostat from your utility provider. Just search for your utility and “Nest Thermostat” to find discounts.

How many customers using Rush Hour Rewards does it take to offset a power plant?

It definitely depends on the scenario but here’s one example: There are lots of peaker plants — the kind of power plant a utility would bring online during an energy rush hour — that are 50 megawatts in size, which is equivalent to only 50,000 thermostats participating in an event. Most major sports arenas hold more people than that!

How does the Nest Thermostat know when an energy rush hour is coming up?

Your energy company, or sometimes another entity that manages your electric grid, monitors weather conditions and forecasts electricity demand. When they predict demand will be high, they call a rush hour. Rush hours can also happen during grid emergencies, like when power plants suddenly go offline due to mechanical failure or extreme weather.

Another fun fact is that virtual power plants help balance renewables like solar and wind on the grid. 

What’s a virtual power plant?

A virtual power plant is what’s created when a bunch of different sources — like home batteries and smart thermostats — come together to help the grid like a power plant would. Because energy output from these sources varies based on things like cloud cover and wind speed, “mini” energy rush hours occur more frequently when there isn’t quite enough energy supply to meet demand. People who participate in Rush Hour Rewards can help balance the grid demand with energy supply. 

How does the Nest thermostat know what temperature is enough to keep me warm or cool but also enough to make a difference during an energy rush hour? 

Your Nest thermostat is very smart! It learns from your use what temperatures keep you comfortable and will make slight adjustments to those settings during or even before rush hours. For example, Nest may pre-cool your house a little bit before a rush hour event starts so that it runs less A/C during the rush hour. Same goes for pre-heating.

Right now, only thermostats participate in rush hours, but in the future your electric vehicle or even your whole home may be able to join in.

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Ask a Techspert: How does Wi-Fi actually work?

We can’t live without Wi-Fi. But how does it work, and how can you make it better?

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A closer look at the new Nest Hub’s design details

For the Nest Industrial Design team, details matter. Working on the new Nest Hub was no exception. "When we approached the design of the new Nest Hub, we wanted to give the product a lighter, more effortless aesthetic,” says team lead Katie Morgenroth. “We wanted it to feel evolved and refined, not reinvented.” Styling alone shouldn’t be the reason to replace a product, she says. “We want to make sure whether you have one Nest product or many, that they all compliment each other in your space.”

Because of this considered approach, you might not immediately notice some of the more subtle updates. We took some time to talk to Katie, as well as Industrial Design lead Jason Pi and Color and Material designer Vicki Chuang, about some of the new additions worth a second glance — or even a third, or a fourth, or a … you get the idea.

  • The new Nest Hub in various colors, including the new blue, Mist.

    The new Nest Hub comes in Chalk, Charcoal, Sand and the new color, Mist.

  • A look underneath the Nest Hub to reveal the Sand-colored feet.

    A peek underneath at the Nest Hub’s feet.

  • Floating pieces of glass against a pink background.

    The edgeless display makes it look like “it’s floating,” Katie says.

  • A close up look at the Nest Hub's edgeless glass display.

    It also makes the Nest Hub an even better home for photos.

The new, cool color. The team introduced the new Mist color because it’s in the cool family, and compliments nature. It’s soothing, and almost looks like a neutral. Vicki led the color and material design, and says that atmospheric colors like Mist help express “soft feelings.” “Color enhances well-being. Mist is inspired by the sky, it compliments nature,” she says. “We started with a range of blues from light pastel to saturated blue, and the soft muted blue felt the most soothing and relaxing — a good fit for the home.”


Don’t forget the feet. Peek underneath the Nest Hub to see the silicone feet. “We try to have a little fun with color there,” Katie says. “We were inspired by the color you see when you cut into a fruit like a guava or a watermelon — it makes you smile.”


The inspiration for edgeless. Our idea for the edgeless display was the look of a piece of artwork or picture frame with a white border. The new Nest Hub has a lighter, more effortless feel, as Katie describes it. “All you see from the front is the glass. It makes the display almost feel like it’s floating.” 


Jason also adds that the general construction was an upgrade. "We’re very proud of the matte finish and silky feel of the display enclosure, which is also more sustainable even though it has a premium feel to it.” In fact, the new Nest Hub was designed with 54% of its plastic part weight made with recycled material.
  • A close up up the Nest Hub in Mist against the fabric in the same color.

    Mist gets its close up.

  • A close up of the fabric used on the Nest Hub in Mist.


  • A close up of the yarn used in the Nest Hub in its various colors.

    The new fabric is more sustainable and improves the speakers’ sound.

  • The Nest Hub's switch revealing the Sand color.

    Don’t miss the switch’s pop of color.

A new knit. The new Nest Hub uses the same sustainable yarn recycled from PET bottles that the Minis use, just slightly modified. We used a recycled monofilament yarn, which gives the device a structure that’s ideal for sound quality. “The fabric was reengineered to be not only sustainable but also optimized for great acoustic transmission,” Vicki says.


And look a little closer…and you’ll see the team color matched the device down to the yarn level, so there’s a subtle blending effect in the overall look of the speaker. “That effect is called ‘melange’ and it’s created when there are two colors of yarn knit together to create a variation in the tone,” Katie explains. 


A hard switch. We first introduced the privacy switch with the Home Mini and it’s been a part of every Nest device since, including the new Nest Hub. The hard switch completely disables microphones, and the new Nest Hub also has added LED lights to the front of the display that indicate when the switch is on or off. This was important to the team to keep consistent across all Nest devices, because privacy isn’t something they wanted to overcomplicate. “From the beginning we always wanted to continue the precedence we set with the physical privacy button and include it on Nest Hub,” Jason says. “There is something definitive about having it be a physical switch. I also like the color pop that's visible once it’s on mute — it’s a nice, clear indicator.” Plus, it’s one more place designers get to have a little fun.

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Sleeping on the job: How we built the new Nest Hub

Take a look inside Google Health's sleep lab, Forty Winks, and learn about everything that went into testing and building the new Nest Hub.

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Sleeping on the job: How we built the new Nest Hub

When Dr. Logan Schneider was in medical school, he didn’t get much sleep. “Residency training is a horribly draining experience where you get something like...four hours of sleep a night,” he says. It was during this time he realized how little we really know about sleep.

“I started prioritizing my own sleep, and also my wife’s and my kids’ — they’re sleeping champs!” he says. (In fact, his friends with newborns often turn to him when their babies won't sleep through the night.) Originally focusing on neurology in medical school, Logan soon became so fascinated by what he was learning about sleep that he decided to study it specifically.

Dr. Schneider is part of the Google Health team that coupled sensor research with sleep science to power contactless sleep sensing in the new Nest Hub, available beginning today. Sleep Sensing, powered by Soli technology, uses a tiny, low-energy radar system to sense motion at the micrometer level. Small motions ranging from breathing to movements are detected, while identifying features like faces aren’t, to give people information about their sleep duration, routines and quality. From this data, the Nest Hub can offer personalized suggestions like waking up at a consistent time, or exercising earlier in the day.

“When we started thinking about the second-generation Nest Hub, we noticed that nearly a quarter of people currently using Nest Hubs put their devices in their bedrooms,” says product manager Ashton Udall. “So we started to look into how we could bring more value to that part of the home.” When the Nest team surveyed users about what else they could do to make the device better for bedrooms, the top request, hands down, was for assistance with their sleep. Combined with trends showing people are getting less sleep and worse sleep, there was an obvious opportunity to help.

“It’s so exciting to be in this field right now because there are so many things we’re discovering about sleep,” says Dr. Raman Malhotra from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, who advised the Nest team throughout the development process. What the medical field is learning about sleep isn’t the only exciting thing, though. Dr. Malhotra also says it’s the fact that technology companies are increasingly interested in democratizing sleep research and helping more and more people understand their sleep. 

The number of combinations and permutations we tested in Forty Winks...it’s unfathomable. Dr. Logan Schneider

For both doctors and patients, sleep is a “black box,” as both Dr. Malhotra and Dr. Schneider explain it; if you go to a doctor and say you’re not sleeping well, it’s not as if you can give much more information than that. You know how you feel the next day, but not necessarily why. “Traditionally, we’d bring someone into a sleep lab to measure their sleep with something called a polysomnogram which is the gold standard for certain sleep disorders — but the polysomnogram has limitations, too,” says Dr. Malhotra. “Most patients don’t want to leave their house for a night and go to an unfamiliar environment. Then, of course, we’re changing what their sleep looks like — who’s going to sleep normally with wires attached to them?” And even after all that, he says, it’s difficult to learn much from just one night.

“That’s what’s so exciting about new sleep technologies,” Dr. Malhotra explains. “We can learn about how someone’s sleeping in their normal environment over a whole bunch of nights, not just one.” Plus, he says, something like the Nest Hub is accessible to far more people than a polysomnogram.

40 Winks, the sleep lab, with three beds and a bedside table set up with various Nest Hubs.

A look inside Forty Winks, Google Health’s sleep lab. 

Before the new Nest Hub could make its way into homes, the team had to get the technology ready for the real world — so into Google Health’s “sleep lab,” Forty Winks, they went. The team used the lab space to simulate various sleep environments. “There are different types of bed mattresses and frames, different types of fans, even adjustable bedside tables,” Dr. Schneider explains. “We had to create this space that we could modularly change so we could recreate as many kinds of sleeping experiences as possible. Co-sleepers, pets, different bedroom setups — all of it.” 

“The number of combinations and permutations we tested in Forty Winks...it’s unfathomable,” Dr. Schneider says. “It was incredibly complex.” For example, data was collected by the team recreating common scenarios such as reading a book or using your phone while sitting in bed, to differentiate these cases from sleep. The team also used “Chester,” a mechanical “breathing” dummy to mimic human respiration to test the Soli-based algorithms.

A dummy on a bed with a Nest Hub in the corner.

Chester, Forty Winks’s resident sleep dummy.

Given that development took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, Google Health product manager Reena Lee was initially concerned about how they would develop sleep sensing for a new hardware product while working remotely. But there was actually a silver lining in the unexpected work-from-home environment. “Googlers who were testing a beta unit at home could give real-time feedback quickly, share setup pictures, or even report issues after afternoon naps!" Reena says.

The team tested the system over hundreds of thousands of nights with thousands of people using it at home in their bedrooms. The device was also tested in a sleep clinic against polysomography, the "gold standard" Dr. Malhotra referenced, demonstrating comparable accuracy to published results for other clinical- and consumer-grade devices.

While the larger mystery of sleep likely won’t be unearthed any time soon, the team is hopeful that advancements like Sleep Sensing on the Nest Hub will help more people understand — and more importantly, prioritize — their sleep. Because, as Dr. Malhotra simply puts it, “There really is no way to replace a good night’s sleep.”

A Local Guide uses Google Maps to help those without homes

When Ashley Sundquist moved to Santa Monica, California four years ago, she noticed something different from the other places she’d lived. “I’ve lived in big cities much of my adult life; I’ve lived in Washington, D.C., Rome and New York City,” she says, “and none of those places prepared me for how many people here in Santa Monica are unhoused.” Santa Monica is part of the greater Los Angeles area, and according to city statistics, 907 people experience homelessness on any given night in the city; if you widen the area to include all of L.A., that number skyrockets to approximately 66,000. 

During her morning commute, Ashley noticed how many people were living outside and gathering at the Santa Monica Public Library. Her gym was next door, and eventually, Ashley started crossing the street to say hello. Soon, she’d made connections with library employees and the people without homes who gathered there, and she began looking for ways to help. 

She also became friends with a man named Joe, an unhoused member of the community who was often at the library. Joe mentioned he struggled with getting lost, which inspired her to turn to Google Maps and the app’s list feature. You can use this to create a list of places, like your favorite restaurants or places you want to visit on vacation. As an active member of the Local Guides program, a global community of contributors on Google Maps, Ashley was no stranger to sharing helpful information about her community with others.

So Ashley started creating lists for people in need. She made lists of resources for young people experiencing homelessness, food banks and restaurants that accept EBT cards. To make things even easier to find, Ashley bought  the domains “lashelters.org” and “lashelters.com,” which send visitors to these lists. “Now when anybody in the world goes to one of those websites, they’ll see these maps,” Ashley says. Joe and Ashley also became friends, and he helped get the word out about the websites. 

Screenshot of Ashley’s Google Maps list for youth resources in L.A.

Ashley’s Google Maps list for youth resources in L.A.

When the COVID-19 crisis hit, Ashley had to pivot. Right away she volunteered her time to teach caseworkers (via Google Meet) how to create their own lists in Google Maps. “I walked them through step-by-step how to search for locations, update the description and share the URL,” she says. She also created a list to help people find free Wi-Fi after many restaurants, coffee shops and other places that offer internet access closed their doors, and another list to help people find transportation to shelters when COVID-19 precautions altered bus schedules. 

Still, things changed so dramatically so quickly; she wanted to do more. “Toward the end of last March, I realized things weren’t going to go back to the way they were anytime soon. I knew how our outreach efforts were going to have to be different.” She started consulting with local agencies to gather information for more lists, or update the ones she’d already made with new COVID-19-related restrictions, changing hours or other stipulations. 

“I hope this can help people get through their day with dignity and humanity. That’s what we’re all trying to do right now.”

Eventually she wanted to try getting the information she’d gathered out in person. In May, she started volunteering at a weekly dinner serving some 150 unhoused neighbors at her local Salvation Army. Soon, she began leading dinners and helped her church get more involved. “We have 20 or so volunteers, with masks, temperature checks, distanced, all of that,” she says. “It’s a huge undertaking but I feel like it gives me a captive audience. Our team can bring a little light and love into a very dark place. We can help people find local resources on the Google Maps lists.”

Ashley looks through Google Maps lists with her friend Joe, whom she met through her work with unhoused people. Joe is also an advocate for his community.

Ashley looks through Google Maps lists with her friend Joe, whom she met through her work with unhoused people. Joe is also an advocate for his community.

Ashley greets everyone as they wait in line for their meal and makes an effort to learn names. “It might be the only time someone speaks to them or uses their name that week,” she explains. “I really work to build a rapport so then I can say to them, ‘Oh I see you’re having trouble getting this or finding that.’” Then she takes out her phone and shares her Google Maps lists on the spot. Ashely notes that many people without homes have smartphones, which act as their lifelines, but if she’s speaking with someone without one, Ashley uses her own to access her lists to call and try to help get them what they need — whether it’s a spot at a shelter or a no-cost doctor appointment.

“People are dealing with homelessness, trauma, hunger, mental health issues, technology barriers...I feel like the least I can do is make the available resources easier to find  with a Google Maps list,” she says. 

Ashley’s hope is that her neighbors feel seen and cared for, and that the Google Maps lists help them meet their basic needs. “I don’t think people realize how tremendously difficult it is to get help when you’re experiencing homelessness,” she says. “I hope this can help people get through their day with dignity and humanity. That’s what we’re all trying to do right now.” 

Chrome OS’s Jenn Chen on a decade of design

Ten years ago, Chrome OS principal designer Jenn Chen was hardly what you’d called a techie. “I was the last person I knew who got a smartphone,” she says, laughing. “I was a total Luddite! I didn’t want to do it!” But today, things are different — and not just for Jenn. The devices we use and how we use them have both changed dramatically over the years. “Technology plays a bigger part in our day to day,” she says. “So it’s increasingly important that we have a human, respectful approach in how we design and build products.” 

Chrome OS embraced that change, and Jenn’s seen the evolution from the inside. Originally, she was the only person on the team dedicated to Chrome OS user experience (UX) — now, she leads an entire team. We recently had the chance to talk to Jenn about a decade of Chrome OS, and what her path to design work was like. 

What kickstarted your interest in working in UX and design?

Growing up, I had a lot of different interests but never felt like they quite added up to a clear career path. I dabbled in biology because I loved marine life, read up on cognition because I was fascinated by how minds worked and even explored being a full-time pianist. One day in college, I tagged along with a friend who organized a visit to a design agency and I found it absolutely riveting. Here were different people with different professions — anthropologists, surgeons, engineers — all working together to solve a problem through a multifaceted, human-centered approach which I learned was called “design thinking.” This really sparked my interest in learning more about product design and building creative solutions to serve real user needs, which led to studying HCI (human-computer interaction) and user experience.

What’s the “movie version” of your job? How is it portrayed in pop culture, and how does that compare to reality? 

The perception is that UXers are in the lab all day, and that every user insight we learn immediately leads to a light bulb moment and design solution! There’s so much testing out ideas, learning that they won’t work and moving on — or years later, bringing that thing back and seeing there is something there, but the timing wasn't right or the tech wasn’t ready before. There’s a lot of constant failure. We designers call it “iteration,” but I think people forget that also means being wrong a lot — and being OK with being wrong, because it helps us learn. The movie version of my job glosses over all that.

Chrome OS was such a new idea. What were some of the early challenges of launching something so different?

Computers have been around much longer than Chromebooks, so people have established expectations and habits. The challenge is meaningfully rethinking what a computer can be while also meeting people where they are. I’ve been incredibly lucky to work with and learn from experts in this space as a part of the Chrome OS team and a part of the broader Google UX community.

One good example of this was that Chrome OS started out with a minimal approach when it came to task management: Users could only have full-screen windows with multiple tabs. We quickly learned that how people manage their tasks is personal, so flexibility is absolutely necessary. We introduced more window controls and tools over time. Today, we've expanded task management abilities for Desks to help people organize their apps, windows and tabs across virtual work spaces, but still benefit from a simplified, more constrained model when they only have a touchscreen handy. 

Early Chrome OS task management

Early Chrome OS task management

Chrome OS desks in 2021

Chrome OS desks in 2021

Jenn Chenn 10 years ago survey

What new launches are you excited about?

So many things! The team has been hard at work on a whole suite of features for Chrome OS’s 10th birthday. I’m really excited about the everyday efficiencies we’ve built, whether it’s helping you find that article you had open on your phone with Phone Hub or making screenshots and recordings more precise with Screen Capture — definitely things that I use daily as a designer. 

Ten years later, what keeps you interested in this work?

I came from the startup world, and to be totally honest I didn’t think I’d be at a larger company for this long. But one of the things I love about working on Chrome OS is that it’s kind of like a startup in a big company: We’ve come a long way after starting out as a little fish in this pond, there’s much more we aspire to do, and I get the huge privilege of being a part of the journey with an amazing team of people. 

What’s especially motivating for me is witnessing how computing impacts people’s economic and social mobility — whether it’s being part of the distance learning solution in a pandemic or supporting refugees in settling in to their new communities. I’m excited to see how some of the bets we’ve made play out, and to be a part of shaping the future of computing.

You feta believe we’ve got pasta Search Trends

In this post: The Google Trends tool shows us search interest in all things feta, cheese and pasta, including data on the viral feta pasta. 

Every season of quarantine can be marked by a food trend. Last year around this time, we were all experimenting with sourdough and banana bread. On the heels of our carbo loads came dalgona coffee. I’d be remiss not to mention the viral quesadilla hack. 

And now, we’ve arrived at the latest: the baked feta pasta. 

The beauty is in its simplicity — all you need are grape or cherry tomatoes, pasta noodles of your choice (though according to social feeds everywhere, penne seems to be a favorite), some olive oil, whatever seasonings you prefer and (of course) a big, salty block of feta. 

But you probably knew all of that already. What you might not know is how wildly interested the world is in this food trend — so we asked the Google Trends team to tell us. 

Feta search interest graph on Google Trends.

The interest in feta alone sharply increased in late January and peaked in early February, and it’s sitting high still. According to Google Trends, search interest in feta and pasta are at all-time highs in the U.S. “Baked feta pasta,” “viral feta pasta” and “tomato and feta pasta” are breakout searches as well over the past month. New Hampshire, Oregon, Washington D.C., Minnesota and Pennsylvania are the most interested in “baked feta pasta,” according to Google Trends. 

Graph showing search interest in baked feta pasta

Searches for the cheese and the pasta recipe are both trending and even hit a record high in February 2021, but when you compare the two...it’s no contest. Feta is the clear search interest winner. In fact, it’s the top trending cheese over the last 90 days in the U.S. The cheese stands alone.

Also in the U.S., for the first time ever, feta surpassed Parmigiano-Reggiano last month.

Graph showing search interest in feta versus parmigiano-reggiano.

Feta’s newfound fame extends beyond the viral pasta, though. According to Google Trends, these are the most popular feta recipes:
 

  1. Shakshuka with feta

  2. Spinach feta quiche

  3. Whipped feta

  4. Vegan feta pasta

Sadly, your local grocery store might be all sold out of blocks of the trendy cheese: The question “can you make baked feta pasta with crumbled feta?” spiked more than 500% in the last week of February. 

If you can’t find feta in block or crumbled form, you could try another recipe altogether: Google Trends data says a little something called “baked ziti” is also a breakout search term over the past 90 days...


Raise the woof for these Puppy Bowl search trends

Every February, search interest peaks for one of our favorite events. A round of appaws if you guessed correctly: It’s the national Puppy Bowl. We wanted to relive Sunday’s excitement by fetching some of the most pup-ular search trends. It’s the leash we could do. 

For starters, fans had to choose a team to cheer for — were you Team Ruff, or Team Fluff? The two were neck and neck (er, scruff and scruff?). Team Ruff ended up taking home the win on the field, but Team Fluff had higher search interest.

Graph showing search interest in Team Ruff and Team Fluff.

Some U.S. fans became attached over the course of the game, too. “How to adopt a puppy from the Puppy Bowl 2021” quadrupled in search interest over the past day, and “puppy bowl adoption” spiked more than 1,250% over the same time period. Don’t worry, Puppy Bowl players aren’t getting all the attention: Search interest in “adoption” more than doubled during the first hour of the event. 

As far as standout performances, the dog breed “Small Münsterländer” spiked more than 1,250% yesterday. And one of the participants, Chunky Monkey (not to be confused with the ice cream) stole yards and hearts.

Graph showing search interest in "Chunky Monkey."

(Fun fact: A related topic of search interest around Chunky Monkey was the Muppet’s Fozzie Bear. You can probably see why.) Given all the doggone curiosity, we decided to take a look at the most-searched dog breeds this year. 

Graph showing search interest in different dog breeds.

And here’s how search interest in the top three compares regionally:

Map showing regional interest in German Shepherds, Bulldogs and Labrador Retrievers.

While the German Shepherd came out on top, we can't help but root for pups everywhere — on every day of the year, and especially during Puppy Bowl. 

A Google designer takes us inside Search’s mobile redesign

The beginning of a new year inspires people everywhere to make changes. It's when many of us take stock of our lives, our careers or even just our surroundings and think about what improvements we can make. That's also been the case for Google designer Aileen Cheng. Aileen recently led a major visual redesign of the mobile Search experience, which rolls out in the coming days. “We wanted to take a step back to simplify a bit so people could find what they’re looking for faster and more easily,” she says. “I find it really refreshing. To me, it’s a breath of fresh air!” 

Like all organizing efforts, this one came with its challenges. “Rethinking the visual design for something like Search is really complex,” Aileen says. “That’s especially true given how much Google Search has evolved. We’re not just organizing the web’s information, but all the world’s information,” Aileen says. “We started with organizing web pages, but now there’s so much diversity in the types of content and information we have to help make sense of.” 

Image showing a mock-up of a Pixel phone with Google Search pulled up on the screen. The search results show answers about Humpback whales, including two images.

We recently had the chance to learn more about the new look from Aileen, as well as the process. Here are five things that drove the redesign: 

1. Bringing information into focus. “We want to let the search results shine, allowing people to focus on the information instead of the design elements around it,” says Aileen. “It’s about simplifying the experience and getting people to the information they’re looking for as clearly and quickly as possible.” 

2. Making text easier to read. One way the team did this was by using larger, bolder text, so the human eye can scan and understand Search results faster. “We’re making the result and section titles bigger, as well,” Aileen says. While we’re on the subject of text: The update also includes more of Google’s own font, which already shows up in Android and Gmail, among other Google products. “Bringing consistency to when and how we use fonts in Search was important, too, which also helps people parse information more efficiently,” Aileen explains. 

Image showing a phone with Google Search pulled up on the screen. The search query is for "running spots sf."

3. Creating more breathing room. “We decided to create a new edge-to-edge results design and to minimize the use of shadows, making it easier to immediately see what you’re looking for,” says Aileen. “The overall effect is that you have more visual space and breathing room for Search results and other content to take center stage.”

4. Using color to highlight what’s important. Aileen says that some other iterations of the redesign experimented with using lots of bold colors, and others tried more muted tones. They weren’t quite right, though, and ultimately the team focused on centering content and images against a clean background and using color more intentionally to guide the eye to important information without being overwhelming or distracting. “It has an optimistic feel, too,” Aileen says.  

5. Leaning into that “Googley” feeling. If you’re noticing the new design feels a little bubblier and bouncier, you’re onto something. “If you look at the Google logo, you’ll notice there’s a lot of roundness to it, so we’re borrowing from that and bringing it to other places as well,” says Aileen. You’ll see that in parts of this redesign, like in rounded icons and imagery. “That form is already so much a part of our DNA. Just look at the Search bar, or the magnifying glass,” Aileen points out.

Image showing Google logo with design effects pointing to its roundness.

Part of the work is also in refreshing the look while remaining familiar. “My three-year-old recently dropped a handful of Legos in my hand, red, yellow, green, blue, and he told me, ‘Mama, this is Google,’” Aileen says. “That’s how playful and well known we are to people. And when we redesign something, we want to bring that familiarity and approachability with us, too.”

Source: Search