Covid-19 response

Google Search's response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a large-scale effort that drew on existing Crisis Response principles and required rapid innovation to meet the unique challenges of a global health crisis. It highlighted the importance of flexibility, empathy, and rapid iteration in Google's approach to providing information and support during a global crisis.

Once the WHO declared a global public health emergency, our team's mission was to provide users with the most useful and authoritative information, which we did by quickly deploying Crisis alerts to meet initial information needs.

Early Covid-19 alerts

As Covid queries surpassed the most common queries on Search such as “weather” and “news”, raising overall Search traffic by 15%, we partnered with teams and stakeholders across Search to build a brand new Covid-19 OSRP (Organized Search Result Page) that would serve as a central information hub from global to hyperlocal needs. We focused on understanding and meeting the needs of our users through ongoing research and analysis, constantly adapting the product to the rapidly changing circumstances to ensure that the information was effective, clear, and helpful.

Collaborating with data visualization experts across Google, I led UX and data viz design for pandemic statistics features such as a standalone map and trend charts. I helped address health literacy challenges and humanize symptoms info by art directing a set of animated gifs to accompany authoritative medical information, and led design of a Coping feature to provide mental wellbeing guidance. I was also responsible for designing the Health Info section of the Vaccines experience, which provided authoritative answers to questions about safety, side effects, pregnancy and allergy considerations and effectiveness of each of the vaccine types.

Statistics features, animated symptoms, Coping features, Vaccines health info

Working on the Covid-19 Search experience brought many challenges, such as designing ‘under fire’ (time-sensitive high-variable conditions), working off assumptions & iterating fast through many unknowns to launch on an almost daily basis while maintaining design quality and high standards of execution. I collaborated with many functions across Search including under direct requirements from Google executive leadership.

Watch my talk at AIGA DC Design Week 2022 for a walkthrough of our COVID-19 work on Search:

Covid-19 response

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