Google UX Masterclass in Egypt
We started off the week by attending a Google Developers masterclass focused on UX and User-Centered Designs in the heart of Cairo. Here are the highlights of what we have learned.
User-Centered Design is a way to build a product, while still aiming to put the user and their needs at the center of the ‘why’ we are building this product. Defining the user journey and helping the user complete tasks, making sure the user feels oriented throughout all the journey etc.
Another required step to ensure a successful product is to engage the user within each stage of building this product — and to make sure that it always meet their needs and expectations. One way to having a safe, productive and fruitful happy-user journey, is by having small mockups to validate with your user before launching.
Finally, once you get the product out it is important to measure the User Engagement Matters, which are the statistical measurements to analyze the percentage of how much time and/ or usage each section of a product, or each screen of an app, the user is engaged with and spending his time on.
The masterclass was divided into eight modules. Throughout each module, we had at least one practical workshop where we had the opportunity to put into practice what we had just learned. This format meant that we went through some pretty intense days! The Google team approached the masterclass very professionally and ensured that no material was skipped and all slides and learnings were analyzed.
One very interesting moment during the masterclass was when Google facilitators spoke about their failed Google products. It is hard to admit one’s own mistakes, so having them share their experiences and learning curves were very inspiring.
One of their case studies was about a specific product: when you are designing a product without involving the user it’s already screwed up. Googlers work remotely a lot. So when it comes to having brainstorm meetings and conferences while hosting them remotely, they came up with an idea of having a remotely connected whiteboard.
So they designed a 50-inch screen that cost $5,000. It was a huge investment for Google and nevertheless, it failed epically.
First of all, you would have needed to have at least two boards, one on each end of the conference, so one for each room. The second reason for why it failed was that it was not a secure device, as it could only connect through public domains and the target users for this project were big enterprises, so there was no way they would hold their confidential meetings while being connected to a public domain.
Furthermore, people hated it. The user was not pleased with the final project as the whole journey of creating this new potential product was done and generated without first consulting with the target user.
For us, this was a good chance to learn more about our own product and get some feedback on some new features that we are working on. We are really looking forward to testing out some of these learnings next Saturday with a bunch of CUJU users. It was furthermore a good experience to be connected as a team — and involve team-members from different backgrounds — such as the backend, the Android team, and the design team. This really made us see things from different eyes, and, especially, see how we are complementing one another with the work we do. If you have a chance to go through a learning experience like this we definitely recommend it!
This masterclass also allowed us to do some networking. We were there with companies like El Menus, who were our table neighbors (and actually are also our office neighbors), a new startup Trabiza that allows you to book a table on any restaurant they hold (still work in progress) and a company called Adam.AI, which enriches meeting experiences (like slack but for meetings); to name a few.
So thank you Google for this great opportunity, we look forward to implementing our recently gained new knowledge in our projects.
