A Day in the Life of a Google UX Design Intern
Many people ask what I do everyday here at Google. According to my photos on Facebook, it seems like all I do is play and roam around the Google campus all day. That’s true. But my day is also filled with different meetings, presentations, and of course, designing.
Here’s an overview of what an average day is like here at Google, through the eyes of a User Experience Design Intern.
7:00am: Alarm goes off. First things first, check my phone. Why do I have so many notifications in the morning? Who’s online all night?!
8:00am: Hop on the Google bus and start my day by checking my email and calendar. Looks like I have some meetings and standups today!
8:45am: Arrive on campus. Hmm..where should I go for breakfast today? Yoshka’s with Sahana and Fionus!
potatoes, rice, and beans
Yoshka’s Cafe, Google
individual needs.”
Juice Bar, Google
10:00am: Looks like one of my friends, Helena, is visiting today! Quick trip to the Juice Bar at the with Helena and Sahana! #CoconutZen
10:30am: 1:1 Meeting with Jeromy Henry, Design Lead at Google Search. He’s a pretty big name here at Google and I’ve been advised to reach out to him by many people! Jeromy tells me about how hard the real world is and how you have to earn things instead of hoping they would just be handed to you. You learn more from failure than from success.
11:10am: Chair massage time! One of the many awesome perks that spoil us interns here at Google.
Alex Faaborg,
Google I/O 2013
12:00pm: Lunch with Alex Faaborg, Staff Designer on Android. Alex has worked on projects from Google Glass to Google Now, and even Android Wear! I’ve really been interested in wearable technology lately so I thought he’d be a great person to talk to. His advice: just go for it. He told me to just get my hands dirty and start designing what I want. I also have my conversion interviews coming up soon so he gave me some great interviewing tips.
1:00pm: Finally some work time! I spend this next hour working on some sketches for one of the projects I’m currently working on. This summer I learned how important all the steps before high-fidelity mockups are. From research to simple wireframes, stay at the low-fidelity stage for as long as you can so you can hash out quick ideas and explorations.
2:00pm: Coffee with Google co-founder, Sergey Brin at Blaze cafe! At one of the TGIFs (Weekly company-wide all hands meeting), the Design Interns got up to the mic and asked the Google Gods to lunch/coffee/froyo/dinner. The reaction from the audience was so funny but it was a great success. Sergey accepted and we had a great talk about where he sees design going at Google and he also was curious about what products kids our age are into nowadays. He was pretty interested in Yo. ☺
3:00pm: Project Sync with Christian. Christian has been helping me throughout my internship while Nate was busy. This is just a check up to see how my projects are going and to ask any questions I have about anything I’m working on.
3:30pm: This is head down work time. I’m in the design zone.
4:30pm: Sahana and Fionus have dragged me into signing up for a Yoga class. I thought it would be pretty easy. I was wrong. Yoga is definitely not going to be one of my favorite hobbies but it was ok.
user research!
5:30pm: A lot of interns are wrapping up their internships! Cheers to an awesome summer at the Goog! #officeshots
Glad I turned 21 this summer because you can only drink here at Google if you are over 21. ☺
6:00pm: We go out to the 1201 backyard for a quick photoshoot with #funtastic4. Gonna miss these mortals so so so much.
6:30pm: Dinner with Thomas at Beta C! Beta C is one of my favorite cafes here at Google! I usually go to dinner with Thomas because he stays a little later than most people doing his work here at night. He’s the only industrial design intern here at Google this summer. He’s famous.
7:30pm: Ahh finally time to sit, relax, and do my work. I stay here till about 9pm and work on my projects. No distractions or meetings, just design time.
9:00pm: Catch the Google bus home. This is the last shuttle home so I have to take it. I usually continue doing work on the bus as well as until I go to bed. It was a good day at the Goog. ☺
Disclaimer: If you think I don’t do a lot of work, I continue doing work until midnight since there aren’t any distractions. I’m also very productive on weekends.
Want to see what it’s like as a design intern in New York? Gaurav wrote an awesome post here about this internship there!
