Hi! I'm Heidi and I'm a multidisciplinary designer that likes to wear many hats. Currently, I am a design lead at Google, driving product initiatives on the Learning & Education team, with the mission of helping students go beyond answers and deepen their understanding in their search journeys, using AI. Previously, I was dreaming up the future of Google Lens and various Google AR/VR initiatives. I enjoy human-centered design, visual storytelling, and systems level thinking. I am a native Brooklynite, currently based in New York City.
I am a lifelong learner and critical thinker, endlessly curious and eager to expand my knowledge, vocabulary, and toolkits across different spaces and domains. I hold two Master's degrees from the University of Michigan, in Architecture (M.Arch) and Information Science (M.S.), specializing in Human-Computer Interaction, and a B.A. from Swarthmore College, where I studied Cognitive Science and Statistics.
Below are glimpses of some work over the years. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if you’d like to learn more or just chat. Thanks for stopping by!
Real-time Concepts in YouTube
Have you ever paused a video because you wanted to look up something the creator mentioned?
Videos are an inherently passive learning experience, and I came up with an idea about making learning more active by extracting concepts from the video as they are mentioned and defining them in real-time. This idea was rooted in the hypothesis that students paused frequently while learning in videos to look up concepts while watching. This hypothesis was rigorously tested and validated with data analysis and a UXR study, then quickly materialized into a fully-staffed workstream to build this feature out in YouTube. We launched this on mobile in November 2023.
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Shopping what you see with Google Lens
Have you ever seen something in the wild and wanted to buy it but didn’t know where to start to find it? Maybe you had no idea where to look or what words to use to describe it.
I led the design of shopping experiences on Lens, Google’s visual search tool. With Lens, you can search with your camera or a photo to find similar products. I’m constantly synthesizing research insights, user feedback, product goals, technological constraints, and using that to identify opportunities that push the technology forward and inspire product direction.
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Bringing Lens onto Google Images
Do you ever browse images for your Google search? Google Images gives users the ability to browse visual answers when text isn’t the best format for those answers.
I led the design of Lens on Google Images, which enables users to learn more about something in any image they come across in their search journey. Maybe the image is of an outfit and they want to know where the shoes are from. This was the first surface Lens (a native experience) was built into the web. Google Images, which gets more than 1 billion searches a day, is the first web surface onto which our team built a full visual experience into. We launched this on mobile in December 2020.
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Bringing Lens to the desktop
I led the design of Lens onto our first desktop surfaces, both 1st party surfaces with large user bases: Google Photos and Google Images. This required a deep understanding of each team’s priorities and user journeys as they related to Lens. We launched this on desktop in July 2021.
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Google Poly: A 3D Asset Library for VR/AR
Poly was originally built as Google’s library of 3D assets to support its ecosystem of VR/AR products, such as Blocks and Tilt Brush.
I led the design of its enterprise version to support its increased demands from various 1P products.
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XR Hackathon projects
I thoroughly enjoy inventing new ideas rooted in real user needs and prototyping them quickly. I’ve had the chance to do this via different hackathons throughout the years.
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Before becoming a UX designer, I built my design foundation in architecture. Studying architecture trained me to think conceptually, experientially, and spatially, and it has been fundamental to my design process. Here are a few older projects that capture the essence of some of that work.