Jonah Jones

The Google Maps navigation and cartography teams have an overwhelmingly complex task: to create a universal experience that helps people navigate their world, no matter where in the world they are. How do you create an experience that works for well-established road grids in New York City and dirt roads in rural India? The Facebook sharing team also have an overwhelmingly complex task: to support the diverse needs of a quarter of the world’s population. How do you build tools that work just as well for a young woman in Japan as they do for an elderly man in rural France? Jonah Jones, lead designer of both products, explains what these problems had in common. The lessons from how the Google and Facebook teams went about solving them can apply to any design process, at any scale, and have far-reaching implications.

The Facebook team launched an experimental app named Riff for sharing videos collaboratively. Jonah Jones (Product Design Manager for Facebook London) will cover the lifecycle of Riff, outlining the problems that the team were trying to solve, how they went about solving them, and the lessons that they learnt along the way. The talk will give a rare insight into the product design lifecycle within Facebook, valuable insights into the psychological aspects of sharing, and three broadly applicable lessons that can be applied to any product.

How do you redesign a product used by a billion people? In 2013, the Google Maps team launched their biggest redesign since the product was introduced 8 years prior. The lead designer will take you through the journey, illustrating three lessons learned that can apply to any design and product development process.