Chrome Omnibox & New Tab Page
ROLE:
Senior Design Lead
RESPONSIBILITIES:
Definition of product design principles
xProd collaboration w/ Google Search
Alignment w/ Material system on Desktop
UI implementation, a11y accountability
Product Background
Chrome was turning 10...and our team was tasked of pairing a refreshed UI with new functionality and features with the “Power of Google”! I lead the effort and redesign of the Omnibox (desktop’s search bar + address bar) while also bringing a little Google smarts to this surface. Additionally, drove the vision for one of the lateget surfaces in Chrome, the new tab page (NTP).
TEAM COMPOSITION:
Leadership: 2 PMS, 2 TLS, 1 UX lead (me)
UX: 1 UX Researcher
Eng: 10-15 software engineers
Google Smarts integration
A main goal of this effort, aside from the visual improvements, focused on integrating more deeply with the valuable information Google. The design we resolved to was simple in approach, with a more language first approach. We introduced identifying icons and favicons for web results/queries, while also adding smart results for calculations, translations, places & entity search and others.
The complexity of this interaction revolved around the habitual and pattern behavior of this search UI. It has a high-frequency use and the smallest evolutions are noticable and effect performance metrics.
Additionally, there were many security & privacy considerations related to tge representation of web content and ownership. I pitched to VP leadership representing Chrome and showed the spectrum of solutions, while weighting business pros/cons.
Google Smarts integration
A main goal of this effort, aside from the visual improvements, focused on integrating more deeply with the valuable information Google. The design we resolved to was simple in approach, with a more language first approach. We introduced identifying icons and favicons for web results/queries, while also adding smart results for calculations, translations, places & entity search and others.
The complexity of this interaction revolved around the habitual and pattern behavior of this search UI. It has a high-frequency use and the smallest evolutions are noticable and effect performance metrics.
Additionally, there were many security & privacy considerations related to tge representation of web content and ownership. I pitched to VP leadership representing Chrome and showed the spectrum of solutions, while weighting business pros/cons.
