Google+ and Social Media Elegance
Competing in a Entrenched Social Space with Motion
When Google+ came on to the scene, it was heavily panned by critics as a 'Facebook copycat'. Although the premise behind Google's social app was much more robust than that, it was a reputation Google fought for years to combat. Behind the scenes, there were power struggles and infighting keeping the experience in the thralls of ambiguity, but within the teams themselves there was passion to create a memorable experience for all users. I was tasked with using Motion Design to build interactions that would not only make the product more enjoyable, but also add valuable feedback to the most passionate users.
Advanced Gestural Interactions
As Google+ evolved, especially the technogloy within the mobile application, we were tasked with challenges of finding ways to interact with UI that hadn't been done before. One of my more complex contributions was utilizing drag and drop menus to enable a user to have access to more features without adding extras screens to navigate through. These prototypes were created to visualize giving a user advanced functionality by manipulating a person's avatar directly. Having the ability to drop an avatar into a user's circles, message them directly, send them an email, were ways to save them from a series of taps and having to navigate down a tree of interactions to accomplish the same tasks.
Subtelty Goes a Long Way
Building Motion Brand is a process that requires a fair amount of exploration. Although, on the surface, it seems like there can only be so many solutions to the same problem, the subtlety in which those interactions are made can be quite differentiating. Something as simple as the way a menu extends and contracts can be affected by how long it takes, how far it's moving, the easing at the beginning and end of the transtion and even how big of a screen the whole experience will be displayed on. In order to settle on these variations, a number of animated approaches need to be applied to the same transitions to get a better picture of how all the pieces should go together.