Designing Google Doodles and delightful experiences | Search Off the Record

[Music]
hello and welcome to another episode of
search off the record a podcast coming
to you from the Google search team today
we're talking about a part of the search
results page we've never talked about
before the Google doodle my name is John
and I'm joined today by Lizzy from the
search relations team today we have
Jessica joining us who is the lead for
Google Doodles and Delight on search hi
Jessica hi Lizzy hi so nice to meet you
guys hi it's so good to have you here
thank you so Doodles and Delight can you
tell us a little bit about what does it
mean to be the lead of Google Doodles
are you hand drawing them are you
uploading them to the search results
page what is involved there okay yeah
sure so I lead up several teams that are
devoted to Bringing Jo
um to our users and our audience and so
there are Doodles which hopefully you're
familiar with but they are the uh
changes to the logo that we've done
since the beginning of Google and that
sometimes have um interactive games or
experiences behind them and sometimes
just bring you to a related search page
and then there are Easter eggs which are
more hidden and are on specific search
pages so if you do the search like do a
barrel roll your whole page will spin or
skew or things like that um or you'll
see even sort of larger interactive um
experiences come out um depending on
what you search and then we also work on
sort of in product Delight so some
animations or some celebrations of
things um that are are sort of much more
um integrated uh moments does this also
include some of the smaller things like
the search Loop type stuff where it's
like did you mean this and it navigates
back
it doesn't necessarily need to be like a
big flashy animated thing it could be
like something small totally right like
if you search recursion it says did you
mean recursion that one
yeah so good yes do you ever have Easter
eggs inside the Doodles themselves like
an Inception kind of
thing yes yes we do actually I think the
most obvious thing is that we have a
universe of beloved characters
that we bring back um through several
things so one of the most popular ones
is weather frog um so if you
use Google weather on certain platforms
you'll see this little frog on the
bottom and he's like wearing sunglasses
and sunning if it's hot out and sunny or
he's got an umbrella if it's you know
raining in your area um so that was
created by a dooder on our team several
several years ago and and he has
appeared in some of the doodle games you
know uh competing for in different
sports or getting a boba or whatever and
then likewise in one of the Halloween
games that we did there was um a cat M
Momo that was inspired by one of the
doodler actual cats and he has appeared
in various games as well and obviously
in various Halloweens afterwards Black
Cat and so yeah you'll see that that a
few of these characters coming back uh
in different contexts they're all
friends is this something that's planned
or is it like happen
organically it it happened organically
it's just our team being
funny you can see the reaction on the
internet people love it we get fan art
you know for these characters we joke
that we want to create a line of
plushies um I don't think that's a
business Google we'll get into but um
you know it's uh it it was done
initially just for our own entertainment
but it's yeah it's been a fun sort of
inside joke with our deepest fans does
the frog have a name like for example we
we have a a spider on our search
developer
documentation and I forgot to name oh my
gosh oh well I no I it's because the the
spiders uh has an unofficial name and
then official name so oh I always think
of The Unofficial name but uh this is a
sidekick of googlebot so googlebot is
the crawler that is crawling the web to
go and find uh Pages for the index uh
and googlebot has a a pet spider named
Crawley because crawls the web and his
unofficial name like lore about Crawley
is that his unofficial name is Dex short
for
index so weather frog is known as
weather frog or froggy this is terribly
creative I mean Crawley it's a yeah yeah
um and Momo obviously has a name so and
Momo is like an alias for the real cat
or it is the real cat's name is Momo in
real life this is a we're doing like
trivia did you know you needed to
memorize the when you came to this
show no Momo is a real cat the real
cat's name is Momo and belongs to a
doodler it is actually if you if you
really want to dig deep I think it's
listed in our
2016 uh blog post about the doodle that
okay I I have like required reading for
after this uh recording to read up of
momo and design some kind of fan art for
Momo yes please do you can see the real
life Momo there's a photo of the real
life Momo there I feel like there's like
a crossover collaboration where Crawley
meets Momo in real life or in on theb
yeah yeah send it send it
over I'll pass it along to the artist so
uh when you're developing uh a Google
doodle or a game or something like this
are there any like criteria or like
technical things you need to keep in
mind in terms of like where it goes on
the search results page or is it like
free range you have the entire like
surface on top of the page to play with
with Doodles I mean there are a few
things obvious ly we do care about file
size these Doodles show up on every
search that every person does in that
particular country um on any given day
and so we don't want to slow down the
actual search engine so we do care
deeply about file size of those images
and of these games as you on initial
enter right if we make a giant game and
you have't decided to engage you know I
think Champion Island are Olympics game
for Tokyo uh I think the total play time
for that was like hours and hour so
obviously that's not a file siiz concern
there but you've chosen to engage with
us in that sense and then I mean there
are definitely technical limitations
that are just like it's easier to kind
of work within the certain spaces that
we already have established but pretty
much you know if we can make it work we
can do it and you'll see that with the
Easter eggs as well you know some stuff
shows up in in very well-known spaces
like the things that you did you mean
those ones you know we can deploy that
very very quickly because we know the
the the tech behind that and how easy it
is to change that and then as you go
further a field obviously it takes a lot
more uh engineering and a lot more
testing to make sure we're not breaking
the cor search experience and so you
just use that judiciously um there's
patterns that we can rely on but there's
also we have free reign um depending on
yeah what we want to do and how much
band what we have and how quickly we
want to launch so do you know what is
the shortest time that you've been able
to like come up with the idea and then
deploy some kind of like fun experience
for Doodles we've definitely done things
on same day wow um yeah
it like that's crazy it's a Sprint of a
day it'll have been things like the I
think it was like the first picture of a
black hole that was released by NASA or
something and uh yeah we the news
artists got on it we coordinated with
you know local doodle managers across
the world about whether or not they were
interested in launching you get the
translations for the text all of that
sort of stuff set up the search results
um not the search results but choose the
query so that can be same day and
likewise the Easter eggs can be same day
as well um in a matter of hours um
something like the did you mean um is
very very quick to determine or deploy
it's a just a matter of getting the idea
getting sign off from our various
stakeholders that you know this is a
good to go and then we just yeah go with
it so it can be a matter of hours we
don't do that that frequently because
that would be crazy um you know we have
Doodles and uh Easter eggs that are much
more frequently months or if not a year
in planning so for example like Olympics
this year like you know that the
Olympics are happening so you are
prepping long time in advance this type
of thing yeah yeah so for the Olympics
especially I think for Olympics and
Halloween where we have shown up
multiple times it's definitely on the
radar of our team I mean everybody knows
that there will be Olympics and
Halloweens going forward so you know
whenever we the inspiration strikes us
to start planning out that experience
then we will we will start that very
frequently it's in the year prior
um we have for Doodles we have an annual
planning process so that um we can sort
of map out our allocations the moments
that we're going to show up and do it
holistically all at once and and so yeah
that's usually where it's like oh the
Olympics are coming next year what do we
want to do like how big do we want to go
this year on Olympics or Halloween or
whatever you know do you want to just
make it a simple thing because we have
some other project we're really excited
about or do you want to go big on it do
you do like a creative design Sprint or
anything like that during the planning
time or is it more like hey these are
sort of the holidays and then we bake in
the creative time later that's closer do
you mean by like the execution like you
have to have the idea I guess if you
know like okay we want to do something
for Halloween it's happening we know
like it's October 31st that's it yeah
it's not a question about that but maybe
the the development about that that
could happen yes at various points of
the year you don't necessarily need to
have the idea like when you're doing the
annual planning no you don't you don't
um it kind of goes both ways uh
sometimes we'll just earmark this is a
big EV we need to do something and then
we'll do the Sprint at any given point
you know we'll we'll form a creative
team a cross functional creative team
that has you know engineering and art
and all of that together um and they
will you know it'll be a small pot of
people like three people or whatever and
they'll just come up with ideas and then
um bring it back and it just happens
like magically they have the idea yeah I
mean we always have ideas we have more
ideas than can ever execute other times
we will have um like blue sky pitches
okay where people on the team you know
come and gather on a given day and just
pitch anything and then we take the best
of those and then calendarize them as
we're doing annual planning to be like
oh you had this great idea on this
instrument that we wanted to feature
like that's an interactive this is how
much it'll take okay so you know we'll
set aside this chunk of bandwidth for
for that and you mentioned that uh some
of the Doodles have a search result kind
of associated with them so I think if
you click on them it does a search
automatically are those metrics that you
would look at or is it basically like we
we come up with the idea the idea is we
think is good people seem to like it and
that's that's all that matters or it's
much more the ladder I'll be honest um
we are not really looking at the search
results or that volume that that
generates um because it is just a giant
button on a very very prominent surface
and um and people have come to expect
that this is you know something
interesting so no we don't really um our
our sort of guiding principle is is this
a gift to users and you know if it is
then let's do it um but we will look at
things I mean it's not that we don't
have any metrics and we don't look at
how things perform certainly you know we
will look at uh the amount of time spent
with an interactive game um and just to
see like okay well we expected this
would take 45 seconds or we expected
this would take three minutes like how
much time are people spending with that
like you know are people making it
through the entire music video are they
clicking off um and it's just good
learning for us as we're developing
things to make you know to make sure
that we're still creating really
resonant experiences and then you know
we don't have like pure metrics on them
but we do a thing on lunch day um that
we like to call Joy scrolling which
should be the opposite of Doom scrolling
which is just to see how things resonate
with the public um and you can see when
things take off because people will be
sharing them on social media and you
know creating fan art
or um you know just saying that like
this person is you know the their most
favorite or this topic is their most
favorite ever and you know is there
anything that uh took you back back in
terms of like you didn't expect so many
people to be clicking this thing or
interacting with this game for so long
this type of thing yeah I mean
regularly every time like why are you
still here no it's great I mean that's
the best right when you see a piece of
fan art that somebody's taken the time
to like go and create a thing derived by
the thing that you made is amazing or
you know these websites that are devoted
to these characters somebody made a
website about Momo I mean there are so
many things there's videos there's like
30 minute long videos out there talking
about our world of characters there's
amazing things out there wi page about
stats there's definitely lots and lots
of sites out there that are cataloging
the Easter eggs um because they are
purposely hard to find right and we
don't publish a site that's just like
here's all the Easter eggs that would
take all the fun out of it you're
supposed to be hunting for these things
um so there is definitely Reddit threads
and and and people's personal web pages
and Wiki pages on the work um and so
that's cool and then you'll see things
like on the Delight side so for the
Olympics that just happened we had a a
little Delight moment after somebody or
some team won a gold medal and there
would be this mechanism that would show
up saying you know blah blah blah gold
medal and whatever and then a little
button that shows up and then you could
as a user click sort of throw these
bouquets of flowers um this little
animated bouquet of flowers and then it
would you know count how many and people
would just Spam the button and and it
would show up and like I I think the
screenshot that somebody sent was like a
thousand or 10,000
book thrown by somebody um and that's
just that's really impressive and there
will be other Easter eggs that we've had
where you know the screen will fill up
with certain objects and and you'll see
how quickly or how many people will like
set share screenshots of them with like
the fully filled up you know mobile
surface or
whatever it's just it's great it's
really you know heartening for us to
kind of see how um deeply people engage
with some of those things so if I wanted
to make my own game or delightful
experience where should I start is this
something that's even attainable for
someone who is not a doodler on a doodle
team so I guess for your own website or
for your own website or for our website
uh for my website let's see no okay uh
for for ony let's say for our technical
audience so for
developers.google.com search um if I
wanted to bring Crawley in in closer
into the world or to create some kind of
Easter egg would I go through like some
kind of creative development process to
have the idea first would I
how could I go about thinking about this
I think for your own website you just
have to yeah you have the idea it
doesn't have to be you know you as site
owner I think it comes from all over the
place um we have ideas come from our
Engineers we have ideas come from
artists we have ideas come from our
leads we have ideas come from the public
and I think it is just a matter of
setting asside the time to do it and it
is yeah it's great just to sort of have
these moments of interaction these this
this connection with uh the people that
you are engaging with instead of I think
frequently websites are sort of one
directional like I put out the
information people come and read it and
that's it yeah yeah yeah there's a
little bit more to have that sort of
interactivity or to have that like you
know we're not just here transactionally
here's the functional part right like we
joke that we're putting the fun in the
functional for Google so to kind of have
that like moment of if you know you know
like I'm we're on the same page here
like I find this funny you might find
this funny in the same way that you
would share some with your friends in
real life um that's just kind of the
attitude and just taking the time to do
that sort of stuff I I would say it's
probably not hard if you've got a good
idea to convince your artists or
Engineers or whatever to take a moment
and execute on things because everybody
loves receiving joy and everybody loves
creating Joy
if it's really resonant I think um like
the most recent one that we did well
actually I don't know if I want to like
leak the the Easter egg nobody noticed
it you know what I'm talking
about so you do have a history of doing
this we do but they're they're small
things um I think just so that we can
execute I guess we are not building like
full fullon games um but for for this
one yet yet it could
be after this conversation yes after
this conversation I am like shouting
down notes wait should I say it or no
sure okay so a while back or recently I
don't know in the distant past uh we did
a blog post uh announcing avif as a
format and then we included uh the image
in the Avi format and then as the alt
text we hinted at that but I don't think
anyone noticed that that's what that was
doing maybe maybe that was it was like
too too nerdy of like like Google
searches is now supporting aith and then
the all text was Google bot and Crawley
checking to see if like they are
supported supported and they're in ath
the format is like extremely
nerdy I I think that's almost too hard
for people to recognize as an Easter egg
okay is that a criteria for Easter eggs
is that it like there needs to be a
minimum bar of like at least one person
can notice if one person notices is that
enough or is it too difficult is that
something Jessica that you consider
like what if nobody finds it because it
was too too hidden you know we've never
had the instance that nobody found the
stuff we actually kind of guess how long
it's going to take with some of the
Easter eggs and it's impressive how
quickly people find things it's like oh
that might take a day for somebody to
notice it's like
nope launched it and an hour later
somebody has posted about it so it may
take a while for some of these Easter
eggs just spread and sometimes we will
make things and they will not have their
moment until months later so I think we
did like a fresh prince of belir tribute
or something or a friends tribute um as
Easter eggs and I think it was you know
it like did okay like At first right you
saw a little bit of chatter like oh did
you see this thing but then it'll be
some moment like six months later where
whoever it is has a larger Network or
whatever or like the celebrity
that is in there finds out and you know
shares it and then it'll really take off
but it sounds like a big part is like
understanding the audience um I guess
for for Google search like you're having
like a wide variety of people that
you're thinking about compared to maybe
are like more technical audience for my
site it's like I'm like coming up with
ideas for fellow nerds like hello fellow
kids is that like part of the process to
like deciding that it's like a
delightful thing like you need to think
about your user and what yeah they would
find as like something that's like oh
that made me smile or that made me um I
don't know like made my day kind of a
thing yeah totally and we are in a lucky
position working for such a large
company that has you know googlers all
around the world um I will it readily
admit I don't even understand some of
our
Easter because we rely on local
knowledge so much so with doodle
um certainly we have uh country
representatives in the countries that we
show up in and they are the ones um
primarily that are pitching the ideas of
who really resonates With Their audience
um and then likewise with Easter eggs I
mean it comes from all over the place
throughout Google of like hey this is
really funny like you know um uh in our
country like I guess in Australia
there's I'm giving away Easter eggs but
I guess this is an interested audience
um there's this uh fictional Legend leg
in Australia about a creature called the
drop bear oh are you aware of this I
think so tell me more though so anyway
the Australia team pitched this
obviously this is not coming from the US
team and is I think it's the story that
they tell tourists to like scare them
and it's you know just funny but anyway
I you're going to get emails about like
no that's not what it's really about
this is an indication of how like this
is very local to this this market and
this is you know hopefully it worked for
them but yeah if you go and Google drop
bearss there's a little hanging warning
sign oh you should do it oh do it I want
to check this out do
it right
now it's kind of nice that you you have
these people that can help be like the
think room for this thing um so that you
can have this like flexibility and
create these more local experiences John
are you checking right now no no I'm
trying to be
serious we get all so obviously
suggestions from the public as well and
so it's just anything in the whole
universe is fair game I would think even
within like googler ideas like you must
have a lot and need to sort of f or
decide like which ones to work on yeah
do you have criteria or is it sort of
like a the think room kind of creative
brainstorm vibe to sort of pick which
one resonates with people how does that
work yeah we definitely have principles
that we abide by um with doodles
we are um strictly
non-commercial uh you know Google is
well known for its ad space and boy
would that be the best ad space ever to
be on on the homepage but so we are
strictly commercial we want to make sure
that people understand this is a gift to
users this is not a giant ad space and
you know we avoid controversial things
and we really want to focus on things
that um are gift and uh Inspire and
connect all of us we celebrate the best
of humanity and so it's really like
meeting that bar as opposed to like oh
here are the things that don't work
because there's so many things in life
that are just joyful and inspiring that
it's kind of like you never run out of
ideas and then the difference is so
Doodles are a push I can use that right
Doodles are a push like this is a
technical audience um a push like a
technical term or like yeah Doodles are
a push to the audience right a push uh
mechanism whereas Delight is a pool
mechanism in that so dud will show up on
every search on the homepage uh wherever
you are regardless of your intent
whereas um with Easter eggs it is a pool
you're not going to see them unless you
go to that
specific uh search you put the thing in
there and so in that sense we feel like
we have more Liberty to do more
opinionated things or more commercially
involved things because you know we are
people that consume media and you know
television shows or books or music or
whatever and these are commercial
entities and they're you know sources of
great passion and love and joy um but
obviously have a profit motive for
somebody um but we can engage with sort
of more commercial entities on those
sorts of things because we know you went
there specifically and you have some
interest or fandom there um so it feels
much more allowable and so kind of just
thinking about where how some encounters
something where their head is at kind of
determines how how you might want to
show up it's interesting because it
sounds like there there's a limit of
like you want to Delight them but not
surprise them too much or like put
something in a place where they didn't
expect it and it would be a negative
experience you're really thoughtful
about like the level of delight is not
like too much yeah yeah I mean I will
counter and say we do love surprising
people um and say that that's you know
actually probably one of our court
tenants um is that like you know the
Doodles um both for bandwidth
perspective but also like are a surprise
when we change the logo frequently right
obviously not a surprise on Halloween
but a surprise in how it will show up um
and you kind of want to just um give
that gift that nobody was expecting and
likewise with Easter eggs right like you
know both from a bandwidth perspective
but also um just yeah you want to
surprise somebody that they when they're
on an information seeking Journey with
something else a little cherry on top I
will say that we do love surprising
people um but to your point meeting
people where they're at is
important right we have fireworks that
show up at the end of a lot of
Championship uh games for sports so like
the Super Bowl or you know when you a
team wins the World Series the uh colors
of the team that won has fireworks and
things like that that show up would we
deploy that on every single game for
every team of a season no because that's
a little excessive right like you you
kind of need to see and meet people
where they're at as you would a human
right well there's probably a level of
like you want it to still be special or
like delightful if you have fireworks
every time it becomes like oh I expect
it now it's like it's going to be there
because it was there last time so then
it's not really a surprise anymore yeah
yeah and you know if you think about the
example the real life example of sort of
Championship Sports you wouldn't do that
in real life like winning the Super Bowl
is a big deal you have a parade you
throw confetti you have fireworks but
like winning you know game eight of your
season like it's like hey did you see
that game that's cool right but like
it's not a fireworks moment fireworks at
every
game cool um so so maybe to to close out
if anyone is interested in learning more
about design or user experience or kind
of going down this path where can they
start what what would you recommend good
question I think that we are not alone
in creating these delightful moments for
users and that it's not even you know
exclusive to digital Realms you know
when you go to a your local cafe and you
order your coffee and they all of a
sudden give you a free pastry or
something like that's also a great
example of how this happens in real life
to you you could obviously Google uh
Easter eggs that other companies have
done and thinking through examples that
you've encountered in your regular
everyday life um through all the things
that you interact with so sort of get a
mental catalog of how people show up or
entities show up but then to your point
Lizzie thinking about your audience and
what is that thing that you share in
common what is that passion what is the
nerdery that you share in common and how
can you celebrate that and it's just a
lot of times it's sort of like an inside
joke
um about something you know what is that
annoying thing or delightful thing or
whatever exciting moment um in your
shared experience um and what can you do
to to show up and then obviously sing
with your teams about what is actually
possible within your technical
limitations and bandwidth limitations um
and just kind of um it's a multi-step
process oh I like what you said like
just like bringing awareness like paying
attention to when things happen in
everyday life is like the first step to
even just paying attention to what
Delights you and what could Delight
other people but anyway this podcast
episode has been really interesting
delightful no uh too
much thank you so much for joining us
you're welcome um that's it for this
episode uh and thank you folks for
listening as well uh next up on search
off the Record we'll be continuing our
chat about ux but we're going to be
talking to a ux researcher about sort of
the behind the scenes of uxr so stay
tuned for that and goodbye bye
[Music]
bye we've been having fun with these
podcast episodes and I hope you The
Listener have found them both
entertaining and insightful too feel
free to drop us a note on LinkedIn or
chat with us at one of the next virtual
events we go to or in-person events if
you have any thoughts and of course
don't forget to like And subscribe so
you can stay tuned for the next episode
thank you and goodbye
[Music]