Evolving Google Photos for a smarter, more personal gallery
Role: UX design manager
Overview
Google Photos is where millions of people store their most important memories—but organizing and finding those memories wasn’t always easy. I focused on making the experience smarter, more intuitive, and more personalized. I led design strategy, team management, and cross-functional alignment for several key initiatives, including the launch of Photo Stacks and Smart documents organization, and a smooth migration of Xiaomi cloud users to Google One. I also ran a vision sprint to help define what the next five years of Google Photos could look like.
Photos Stack experience
Smart organization for utility images
OCR based event creation
Xiaomi cloud migration to Google One
The Challenges
Photos was already a strong product, but there were a few core challenges we needed to address:
- Users struggled to organize related photos—especially when it came to similar shots or burst captures.
- Everyday utility images—like screenshots, documents, and receipts—cluttered the gallery, making it harder for people to find the moments that actually mattered.
- Xiaomi users moving from their native cloud to Google Photos needed a smooth, trustworthy migration experience.
- And beyond all of that—we needed to think long-term: how do we keep Photos competitive and meaningful as the ecosystem evolves?
Approach
1. Lead with user needs
I worked with our UX researchers to identify key friction points across photo organization, sharing, and search. From that, we prioritized a few meaningful problems to solve—not just what looked shiny, but what actually helped people find and relive their memories.
2. Deliver near-term impact, plan for the future
We launched features like Photo Stacks, which grouped similar photos together automatically using metadata and context. I also worked closely with the Lens team to streamline interactions between Lens and Photos, so visual search felt less jarring and more integrated. At the same time, I ran a cross-functional five-year vision sprint for the gallery space—bringing in PMs, engineers, researchers, and biz dev to co-create the long-term direction of the product.
3. Make high-stakes transitions feel simple
I partnered with Xiaomi’s design team to support the cloud migration of millions of users. We focused on building clear onboarding flows, minimizing friction, and ensuring data integrity. It wasn’t flashy work—but it mattered deeply to users and business goals.
4. Support and grow the team
I managed a team of designers and supported their individual growth through regular 1:1s, strategy deep-dives, and feedback rituals. I also created space for design jam sessions and informal hangs to keep the team grounded and connected.
Outcomes
- Photo Stacks drove a 10% increase in user engagement with organized albums
- Automatically sorting utility images—like screenshots and receipts—into a separate space helped people feel more in control of their gallery without the tedious manual cleanup
- The Xiaomi cloud migration successfully transitioned millions of users with minimal issues and high satisfaction
- Our five-year vision was adopted across teams and used to guide future roadmap planning for Google Photos
Looking Back
This work was a mix of thoughtful iteration and forward-looking strategy. I’m proud of how we tackled everyday usability challenges while also taking time to step back and ask, “Where is this product headed next?” It was one of those rare projects where I got to lead both execution and vision—and support a talented, kind team along the way.
Press
Davina Kim