Running of the Googlers
Translating big data into helpful infographics for Google employees and their visitors.
Experience design + Data visualization
Client: Google, Chicago
Challenge:
Use the semi-truck sized, 134,784,000 pixel, display of screens in Google Chicago’s lobby to create an on-brand first impression.
Use available data and computing power to provide viewers with customized and useful information.
Use motion and interaction to ensure that the resulting narrative is particular to the Chicago location yet representative of the larger brand culture and voice.
Solution
Running of The Googlers is a data analytics meets human-centered design meets infographic match made in heaven. Combining Google Chicago’s calendar, facility, location, personnel and conferencing data into meaningful visualizations. It was our clients dream to display complex data, in real time, on the mammoth-sized lobby screen — and it was our mission to take the complexity of the data involved and boil it down into an engaging, on-brand, infographic narrative.
A few examples...
Client Testimonial
“I remember my first contribution to the project was merely a dump of charts and graphs that described my perspective of the data. Google’s stated purpose is “to organize the world’s information” and Kelsy suggested that we should orient the piece around answering the questions a typical employee or visitor would have when he or she walks into the building – “Where can I find some quiet time,” “What rooms are free,” or “Should I take the stairs?” Kelsy helped us move away from technical diagrams in favor of illustrations that told a story. One example: instead of representing the congestion on the stairs as a Sankey diagram between floors, she used animations of Google colored balls bouncing up/down the stairs and riding in animated elevators so end-users could quickly see which option was busier (the actual answer to the question). Further, Kelsy’s suggestion to start each of those individual data visualizations with an animated version of the voice-command “Ok, Google…” demonstrated not just an understanding of what the Google brand currently is, but what it hopes to become in the future.”
– Daniel Walt
Analytic Lead, Google
Results:
A Facilities/PeopleOps ideation platform for new metrics that address employee productivity and site utilization.
A piece of functional artwork packed full of engaging and sometimes playful commentary on what it’s like working in a multi-story, open-office environment with 750 other cross-functional teammates.