Google Partners
Creating a new intuitive, informative and engaging rewards based e-learning platform and progress dashboard for members of the Google Partners marketing program.
In 2019, Google launched a new program to train and certify advertising agencies, digital marketing professionals, and other online consultants who use Google Ads accounts and reward them for being a part of the program. This new experience would provide resources, tools, and unique challenges for members to aspire to in order to grow their business(es) and continue using Google branded tools.
This new Rewards experience needed to provide resources, tools, and unique challenges for members to aspire to in order to grow their business(es). It needed to increase engagement and increase overall time spent on the website, increase the number of successful challenge/goal completions, and decrease # of support emails received.
Our goal was to transform the dashboard from just a tool to a more personal destination for all Google Partners.
I was the UX lead on the project and collaborated closely with a visual designer and insights strategist. I was responsible for leading discovery, defining a product vision, and bringing the vision to life through design. The broader team also had an account manager, content strategist, project manager, and a tech lead.
I lead iteration sessions to sketch ideas and transform them into low fidelity wire frames with minimal branding and a focus on improved functionality, content structure and page flow. I began with a variety of graph styles eventually moving away from circular, odameter visualizations for more straeamlined line graphed. Because Partners were struggling with clarity and understanding of system status, it was most important that data visualizations were optimized. I created new graphs that were intuitive, colorful (friendly), and readable in real time. They improved upon the original line graph with updated visuals, functionality, and interactivity, giving the user more freedom and control of their information.
I also improved information architecture to deliver a clearer content strategy for both the Dashboard and the Toolkit: I created better filters that minimize user input and increase discoverability. I designed stronger carousel cues to sort content, infinite scroll and a sticky filter set, as well as a dropdown function that links to the challenge cards on your dashboard per quarter.
I also designed a bookmarking feature stored in a FAB that is accessible across the site so that users can keep and collect resources or content they find most useful.
To address the recurring problem users have with feedback and contact, I designed an interactive FAQ page in addition to clearer and more frequent surfacing of CTAs linking to Google's email support team. In future iterations, we were planning to integrate a live chat feature with either automated answers or the ability to connect with a dedicated support agent on the line for more personal help.
Finally: prizes and redemption. The Google Partners Rewards program functioned on a point system and one of our biggest user frustrations was rooted in this experience. Users were having trouble not only keeping track of their points, they also felt that the store was overwhelming with offers (many of which did not apply to them, especially if they didn't have enough points to redeem the better prizes). To make the store and point system more motivating, I designed a store preview feature that would show only available prizes in a user's point range, and better encourage and motivate them. This helps take the guesswork out of the initial shopping and browsing experience.
The impact of this work was large. This allowed our team to secure more budget for the project as well as an expanded scope of work, and due to the success of the initial vision, I won an extended contract of about 12 months to continue work on developing this tool and its surrounding digital ecosystem. Google also specifically requested that I continue to lead the project's design team due to the impression that my work made on their team.
After implementing this new experience, we saw support emails decrease by 12%, page retention increase 15% with bounce reducing over 30%. We also asked Google to test the new experience with power users and the response was overwhelmingly positive, with most users citing the improved progress tracking, bookmarking feature, and redesigned resource center as among the most helpful improvements.