GOOGLE:
ANDROID ENTERPRISE

Client

Google  //  Design Lead / Snr Design Manager

Role

Following Google's successful acquisition of the Divide app and team I was made design lead for their Android Enterprise (née Android for Work) proposition. I would need to build the Design & Research function at the same time as set the design and feature development roadmap for apps and Platform. My team and I would be responsible for designing the workplace of tomorrow, leveraging all of Google’s technologies to create ubiquitous user experiences across mobile, desktop and beyond. I had not designed for such a large market before, the scale was daunting but exciting with hundreds of millions of potential customers for our Enterprise offerings but also the 2.5 Billion global platform customers who would benefit from improvements to the Android UI, security updates, privacy features and much more.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed we charged straight into the prospect only to hit major obstacles with internal technical constraints and the politics of a large company, navigating teams who worked in siloes and were not open to hearing ideas, let alone feature requests from a relatively unproven team,  to move fast required diplomacy. The strategy was to offer collaboration, influence from within and build trust. After a roadshow across the many teams we utilized design sprints to foster collaboration and build alignment. Through perseverance and the indomitable spirit we persisted, unlocking the doors we needed to make significant changes to the platform and 1st party apps within a very aggressive timeframe. This work also laid the foundations for a cultural shift. Android had previously seen business customers as secondary to general consumers. Over time we noticed teams starting to think about the Enterprise sector as they were developing features, instead of retrofitting solutions post implementation. My team became an integral part of the platform development process at every step, greatly improving platform and product excellence across Google. 

Challenge

Android had not focused on Professionals, Businesses and the Enterprise sector, with iOS taking most of the market share and growing. To set a multi-year strategy to steal back market share, develop unique platform and app offerings to... 

Make Android the platform of choice for people at work.

Solution

One device, two profiles. In the work profile, company data stays protected, separate from personal apps and data. Work apps get distributed through 'managed' Google Play, and with the work profile, personal apps are private from IT, even if the company owns the device. When the day is done and it's time to disconnect, employees can pause the work profile and just use their personal apps until it's time to get back to work. Beyond the Platform enhancements we also contributed many new features to Google's suite of 1st party apps (Gmail, Calendar, Tasks, etc), we supported and influenced the development of the Material Design system, the AndroidX AppCompat library and designed many new features within the generic Android, Chromebook and Desktop experiences.

Outcome

Android Enterprise launched in 2015. Within 2 years it had secured 30% of the Enterprise market share, bypassing iOS in 2020. 

Badging - The Android ecosystem is complicated with OEMs adding their variations to style and layout. In this ecosystem, how do you distinguish a work profile app from a personal app? The answer is a platform wide (automatic) badging, that works with every icon shape for all OEM variants, providing a highly parsable distinction for the end user. 

Our research showed that end users wanted access to both personal and work apps at the same time. This customer insight became the guiding light for our platform design blueprint. To keep both data containers separate we would need to access a new profile partition inside the platform itself. This lead to our guiding principle of One device - Two profiles. 

The app drawer was separated to show both profiles. This helped the end user quickly parse and access the apps managed by their IT department without restricting the personalization of their device pages. 

Work Challenge - Adding a second security challenge when activating the work profile. Security improvements were key to support Androids growth in the Enterprise sector. This required deep platform reconfiguring and has led to hundreds of security and privacy improvements that benefit both IT organizations and Employees.

Work profile toggle - Digital wellbeing is something I care deeply about. Understanding the technology behind the platform gave Android a unique opportunity. Every platform has the ability to set a platform wide 'Do not disturb', but what if you only want to silence the work apps and notifications when it's your time to switch off, whilst still receiving all your personal apps and notifications? The answer was simple, let's enable  the end-user to switch off the work profile at any time they choose. Although this feature hit significant resistance I pushed hard for it and it is now the No.1 differentiator for the Platform offering, playing a significant role in securing market share.

Focus mode - As part of Android's on-going Digital Wellbeing program they leveraged the infrastructure designed for the work profile toggle to create the new 'Focus mode' feature for Android 10 and beyond. It's so great to see this amazing feature now available to all Android customers.

Work Profile Promo (Android 10) - Since leaving the team in 2017 to join Twitter I have been cheering them on from the side. It is wonderful to still see concepts developed back in 2015 and continuous improvements released to the world in every Android update. Go team!