Google Modernize Workspace Video Player
Modernizing the Google Workspace Video Player
BUSINESS GOAL
Workspace has a video primitive to power the video experiences across Google Workspace. The Editors create a new video editing tool (Vids), Meet is improving their asynchronous meeting experience, and Drive is updating the video player to better support all cross-product journeys. These updates are all part of Workspace's effort to make video a more seamless and integrated part of Google Workspace.
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
76% of users expressed frustration (n=650) due to playback quality, processing latency, missing features, feature discoverability
CSAT 57% • DSAT 30% (n=1401 responses)
WHAT PEOPLE WERE SAYING
“Looks like YouTube but doesn’t entirely behave like it”
“The video is supposed to be uploaded on YouTube or is running on YouTube i think from drive, and yet it is buffering a lot at the start.”
“15 attempts later I’ve resumed my video a few minutes earlier then I need, but dare not try and skip forward to find the right spot least it die on its arse again”
PROBLEMS TO SOLVE
Google Workspace relied on the YouTube Video Player API, leading to a critical user experience gap. While visually familiar, this player lacked essential features users expected from YouTube, such as preview scrubbing, highlights, and chapters. This discrepancy caused significant user frustration. Compounding the issue, YouTube was unwilling to commit to adding these functionalities to their API, and the player's dated appearance failed to align with the GM3 design standards.
OPPORTUNITY
Recognizing this critical user pain point and design inconsistency, I successfully advocated for a comprehensive visual update to the Workspace video player. My efforts secured critical buy-in from Workspace leads, ensuring dedicated resource allocation and cross-product alignment. This initiative aimed to redefine the video experience across all Workspace products and platforms.
GOAL
Make video a hero journey across workspace by delivering a unified async video experience.
Make video a seamless "hero" journey across all Workspace products.
Modernize the player to align with Google design standards, not YouTube standards
Cohesive video playback experience
Lay the foundation for faster development of video features
SUCCESS METRICS
Maintain or increasing user satisfaction
Increasing perception of modernity
No increase in latency
APPROACH
BUilding THE FOUNDATION
My initial approach focused on establishing the core framework for the new player. I defined the foundational components, building blocks, and interactions.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
We conducted a competitive analysis to understand feature gaps and industry standard patterns.
CROSS-WORKSPACE DESIGN JAM
I organized and co-facilitated visual design brainstorm session to drive alignment and foster collaboration across Drive, Vids, Workspace Design Systems, and Meet.
We synthesized the ideas from the brainstorming session and focused:
Color – Introducing and expressive & live color palettea
Shape – Containment to create heirarchy
Opacity – Opacity & gradients on the controls
We defined two directions. Our partners and leads wanted to move forward with direction 1.
Direction 1 - Contained timeline and controls, Direction 2 - Open timeline
PROTOTYPE
I created a prototype to evaluated the usability of direction 1.
FINDINGS
The findings were positive.
Majority of the users liked the new direction of the video player! And thought it looked “modern” and “sleek”
Creators were agnostic about the appearance and care more about collaboration and performance
Some felt the controls gets in the way of the video
Nearly a third of the participants mentioned the new design had some form of familiarity to Apple and its video player on Mac
The video hover preview on Drive was a hit!
DESIGN SPRINT
Our team wanted to move forward with Direction 1, but I hypothesized that wouldn’t scale with future features. As a result, I organized and facilitated a cross-Workspace design sprint.
While our primary focus has been visual updates, this sprint will ensure our designs are compatible with future cross-product journeys, such as: chapters, comments, and reactions. We want to ensure high confidence that the potential layout changes introduced to the WS playback controls are future proofed. Moreover, it’s important to ensure seamless functionality across all products to deliver a high-quality player that meets our user needs.
During the sprint, our team performed rapid rounds of design, validate, iterate, and repeat. Share out deck.
WHAT WE LEARNED
We learned that the alternative direction was better suited for upcoming features. We secured leadership buy-in to pivot direction.
REfINE
We moved forward with the open timeline and refined the visual and motion design.
LAUNCH AND VALIDATE
We launched the Video playback experience in Drive and Vids in November 2024!
Our post-launch metrics indicated
Satisfaction stays the same
Dissatisfaction went down 10%
Perception of modernity went up 20%
No increase in latency
WHAT PEOPLE SAID
“I have a good experience with viewing videos in Drive of late. In fact, I like the new update, the look, espeically with the function of letting you pick the playback speed”
“The service has been impeccable lately! This [player] looks so cool. Keep going!”
“I like it! It’s not like YouTube anymore; I think it works better and tt reflecs a new persoalty, is modern, and could improve the experience for usres. I really like it—good job!”
TEAM
UX Lead - Me
Visual Designers - Yong Kim (WS Design System), Zoë Knight (Drive)
UXE & Motion Designer - Josh Greco (Drive)
Interaction Designers - Dan Littlewood (Meet), Nida Hameed (Editors), Ron Zhang (Drive Mobile)
Research - Prasanna Muthukumar