Method Podcast, Episode 1

A conversation with Project Fi Design Lead Jay Wong about prototyping, tools, and designers who code

Hosted by Interaction Designer Aidan Simpson, the Method podcast profiles designers at Google, giving listeners an inside look at their journeys and design choices. In the first episode, Aidan interviews UX Design Lead Jay Wong about her experience working as a designer with a computer science degree, some of the design decisions and challenges her team tackles on Project Fi, and much, much more.

A few highlights:

On why designers should learn programming, 9:35 “Learning to code forces you to get better as a designer because it forces you to think of everything as a system.”

On education and knowing your design tools, 15:00 “The faster you are at the tool and the quicker you are at doing things that are boring, the more time you can spend on real design problems and actually innovating and solving the things that the computer can’t solve.”

On the future of UX design in a world of fast-changing tech, 20:46 “There's always going to be room for problem solving when humans interact with technology.”

Handy info and links for this episode:

  • Project Fi: Google's wireless phone network
  • Neopets: website where users feed and care for virtual pets
  • Google Grow: internal education program at Google
  • UXU: User Experience University, an internal UX conference for Google employees
  • Redlines: layout specifications for a developer to implement a digital design
  • General Assembly: an education and training organization that hosts workshops and classes

Jay Wong is a User Experience Lead hailing from Sydney, Australia. While studying Computer Science and Design at UNSW, Wong started Omnomnom Studios, a company building beautiful apps for large companies. She is currently a design lead at Google on Project Fi, working on creating the best wireless carrier service. Wong previously worked on other Google products including Hangouts, Photos, and Google+.