google international research - london, october 15

Method Google International Research November 2015

International Research at Google (SIMux)

Method Google International Research October 2015 2

SIMux:Search, Identity & Maps. The team responsible for understanding user needs and shaping the visual, interactive, and editorial experience in these core Google products.


Speakers:

Jeannie Foulsham

Alessandra Millar

Saswati Saha Mitra

UX Researcher, Google Search.

UX Researcher, Google Maps.

UX Researcher, Google Maps.


Shifting focus


10 years ago 1% of the worlds population was online. Now over 40% are.


70% of Google traffic today comes from outside of the US, and that number will only get bigger.


The next billion users to come online are going to be from markets other than North America and Europe. China, Brazil and Nigeria all in the top 10 of internet usage countries.


277M

US

226M

India

126M

Brazil

58M

UK

Internet users


Emerging Markets:Mobile-first Mobile-only For internet users in emerging markets, the first experience of the internet is far more likely to have come via a mobile connection than their counterparts in a developed country. Not only are they ‘mobile-first’, many of these users are also likely to be ‘mobile-only’ having never used a desktop device.


Emerging Markets:Feature phones Devices have smaller screens and memories, provided by local vendors for under $100.

Second hand devices are very popular.

Majority of users are on pre-paid, low data plans and often have less than 3G connections.


Examples of culture and context:Brazil

Users are very cautious and concerned about safety and will rarely use their mobile phones or cameras in public.


Examples of culture and context:India

In India a small amount of the population have a bank account - users often preferred to buy something online and pay in cash on delivery - many services have now made this form of payment available with huge success.


Examples of culture and context:India

Google maps - research team identified that participants way finding strategy was based around landmarks and not street names. This was much more identifiable for users and reflected how they gave directions to others.


Building Empathy


Create excitement The research team tries to bring people together from across the company to solve problems - but people need to know about research plans in order to join in.

To reach the widest audience they use video and imagery to demonstrate opportunity areas in their presentations.


Pre-field homework If a team requests field research, they first compile desk research before investing in recruitment and travel. This focuses on people, culture and the economy.

This helps to fine-tune scope and ask smart & focused research questions that push the boundary of the teams understanding of the subject area. Desk research may include logs analysis, online product reviews, heuristic evaluation, synthesis of internal and external research.


Everyone is a researcher Mixed teams of engineers, project managers, designers and marketing - as soon as they hit the ground, these roles disappear - everyone becomes a researcher.


Immerse yourself Going to another country and following your normal routine (eating out at a new restaurant, taking a taxi to get around) means that you are missing out on learning about how the locals live their lives.

Immersion activities to build empathy and connect with local users such as: Riding public transport, buying a SIM card, eating lunch on the average country budget or buying a typical thing in a local market.


Immerse yourself Home-share - live with a local over hotels where possible to truly understand how a family lives day to day.

Go to local places rather than ‘tourist’ destinations. i.e. Public places such as visiting local hubs and chatting with people.

Social experiences can often inform a products use.

Immerse yourself in the local experience and test the use cases on the goWhen you're being pushed around in Rio de Janeiro public transport or sidewalks, can

you use maps?Try buying a SIM card (in Brazil it's a 3 day event)

Find a meal for under $5Try homesharing

Go to local places - what kind of social experiences inform your product use?Example: By the time researchers were able to give a rickshaw driver in India

directions using maps, he had already asked the guy parked in traffic next to him and was already following his directions


Immerse yourself Don’t only think about the product you are designing for - think about the context.

What does the context need? Can you provide it?

e.g. Delhi Public Transport Offline offers directions and timetable data for buses and metros in New Delhi available in offline mode, so if someone’s on a limited data plan or reception is poor, they can still get the information they need.


First hand experience Try local devices and products. As an immersion activity, encourage people to buy a smartphone and SIM card.

Look at what products and services are prevalent and how locals are solving problems using other apps or workarounds, and replicate this on similar devices and infrastructure.

– Using Google’s apps in the wild gives teams a sense of urgency to fix issues

– Google offices replicate a 2G network so product teams can test their products at a slow speeds.


Street intercepts & Interviews The team often uses street intercepts as they can use a cut down script, it is more natural with no preparation needed and they can ask users going about their daily lives.

Get participants to ‘do rather than say’ - If they describe a behaviour ask them to show you in a live walk-through in person.


Quant & Qual research As well as quantitative research, what can we learn from the quantitive data gathered from our product? Does this match what we find in the field? What can we probe further?


Changing culture


Getting buy-in To ensure the research is accessible and enticing to a broader audience, the team experiments with different formats/mediums: posters, postcards, videos shot in-situ, photos, short one-line insights, live blogging learnings, and have even tried an expo where they pitched tents in the office to tell their stories from the field.


Getting buy-in Their team have been bringing a popup design studio to the field - testing and validating on the go.


Getting buy-in Communication is the number one skill of a researcher - you have to learn how to sell in your findings.

You owe it to yourself to hand hold the product team to ensure the information is shared across teams.


Getting buy-in Find a champion within your organisation so you’re not the only one peddling the benefits of international research.

Co-present research findings together with stakeholders, so they can add to their stories from the field to bring them to life.

Write implications together and add action items to research reports to illustrate how insights are informing the roadmap.


Guiding standards Google’s 6 C’s guide decision making when creating products for these emerging markets:

Connectivity Compatibility Cost

Commerce Culture Content


Changing culture When in-field research isn’t cost effective:

Remote research tools:Mechanical Turk Gotomeetingusertesting.com

Get scrappy:Recruit through forums, user networks or snowball participants.

Method Google International Research November 2015

Thanks!

google international research - london, october 15

Design