Google
Photos

Designing third party APIs, UX Guidelines and social experiments.

MAR 18’ — JUN 19’

Product Designer

APIs UX Lead/p>

Feature project

Google Photos APIs

Screenshot of the Google Photos APis home page
Developer-friendly APIs to add the power of Google Photos to any digital product.
My designs needed to serve two separate user groups: Google Photos end-users, and API developer/partner users.
My primary focus was to ensure user privacy was upheld for our own end users, while providing partners with the tools and guides necessary to help them succeed with their own products and businesses.
Screenshot of the Google Photos APIs UX Guide page
A UX led set of publishing rules, and approval checks.
I implemented a UX review process on the Google Photos APIs. I used the review process to simultaneously audit and help developer partners improve their UX practices, and to identify any bad actors or potential instances of user deception. The process started with UX Guidelines and use case examples, and ended with a formal review of any third party integration before they were able to publish. In this way we were able to uphold the privacy promise to our own users, and allow them to integrate their Google Photos data into third party products and services to get the most out of their own photos.
Example UI of acceptable user communication
Example UI of rule breaking user communication
Facilitating collaboration and ideas for better product application.
I helped push our APIs forward into new industries and worked with partners to innovate on the ways they could create integrations.
I ran various co-design workshops with industry leading companies to identify the best way the overlapping userbases could be supported. I also facilitated ideation workshops with the Google Photos cross-functional team to identify new industries that would benefit from interesting integrations with Google Photos users. The results of these workshops were used to inform our business development team’s outreach and led to new and exciting partnerships.