A Peak Inside Google's Gmail Usability Lab
Nika Smith wrote a post on the Google blog today showing the evolution of Google chat before it launched in early 2006. Google does extensive testing of new products using employees as guinea pigs (see our post on the pre-launch evolution of Gmail) …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google's account of Gmail chat's pre-launch evolution puts the usability lab in a broader product-development practice: internal employees test and rapidly iterate on features before they reach users. That process matters for a communication product, where small interface choices shape whether a feature is understandable enough to launch.
The approach is not confined to Gmail. Google has also said it will alter Google News' look and feel through user research and feedback, while its testing practices had already drawn outside attention.
First-order effects
- Google's product teams gain an internal audience for finding usability failures in Gmail features before exposing them to the service's users.
- Gmail users receive chat features only after they have passed employee testing and rapid iteration, making the lab a gate between design concepts and release.
Second-order effects
- Google's internal testing process makes user research a recurring input to interface decisions across products such as Gmail and Google News, rather than a final validation step.
- Competitors building web communication tools face a higher bar on interaction polish when Google can refine features with its own workforce before launch.
Third-order effects
- If Google applies the same employee-testing model across its services, product development shifts toward controlled experimentation as a core advantage for large platforms with broad internal user bases.
- The model also concentrates early product feedback inside Google, making the company's internal workforce an important filter on which interface ideas reach the public.
The trend: Google is embedding rapid internal usability testing into product development, using employee feedback to shape consumer-facing interfaces before release.