I moved to Tokyo, Japan in 2017 after spending almost a year in SF Bay Area. Joined a small team that focused on experimental features inspired by Japanese users for Google App.

We took a closer look at day to day life of Japanese people and learned some of the cultural contexts, such as busy commute time where a lot of people holding a handle in subway and operating with one hand. Or very dense nature of the city influences interesting food scene.

I led design, research to create a new feature that help users to find interesting food photos around users. Instead of showing dense information up front, we decided to show mouth-watering food photo first to inspire users. I went through several iteration that has different emphasis on information architectures that matches users thought process.

This feature was launched in Japan first then converged with main local search feature afterwards.

We made a nice little video that highlighted the feature.