Google product icons orbiting an iPhone that asks about the benefits of Google’s ecosystem for college-age users

Google: Design Interventions for College-age iPhone Users

Role: Product Designer
Timeline: 3 months
Team: 8 Product Designers
Platform: Figma, FigJam, Google Suite

Context

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This project is under NDA

Through Design Consulting at Cornell, I led an 8-person team to develop a three-stage mixed-method research program focused on engaging users with Google products.

I guided the design, refinement, and testing of conceptual interventions based on research findings and stakeholder feedback.

Nine members of the Design Consulting at Cornell team in a Google Meet call — Our team of consultants working with Google, and our client Sarah.

Key Takeaways

Designing for ourselves required a different kind of empathy

UX classes often teach us, ‘Don’t design for yourself.’ But in this project, our team was part of the target audience: Gen Z college students. I learned to use our firsthand experiences as hypotheses rather than universal truths, then step back and test which assumptions were actually shared by other students.

The experience extends beyond a single interface

I entered the project thinking primarily about UI/UX, but our interventions also touched marketing, communication, and ecosystem strategy. Exploring ideas across NotebookLM, Gemini, Maps, Chrome, Calendar, and Gmail taught me to design connected touchpoints around a student’s day, not isolated features on a single screen.