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Google Workspace Admin Console: Simplifying App Collaboration

& Sharing Settings

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Case Study

What was my role?

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• Starting in 2022, I work on a team of 30+ designers, product managers, and engineers to improve the usability of various customer journeys on the Google Workspace Admin Console.
• Most common topics include how Workspace customers can more easily and effectively set-up App security policies for their organization.
• Ex: User/group management, setting data protection rules around Workspace apps, device/app encryption.
• Have conducted user sessions with 60+ admins in the last 6 months.
• For this Case Study, I’ll be focusing on a project that aimed to simplify app collaboration settings for small / medium-sized businesses.

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What is the product feature being tested?

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Who were my collaborators/stakeholders?

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• Trust rules is a new security feature which allows admins to set fine-grained rules defining whom their users can collaborate with in Google Workspace Apps (ex: Drive), both within and outside of their organization.
• For all customers on a certain plan, Trust rules will replace the existing “Sharing options” in the Google Apps admin controls.

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Current Version of App Sharing Settings

Trust Rules: New (Beta) Version of App Sharing Settings [more advanced settings, completely new UI]

• 2 Product Managers
• 2 UX Designers
• 5+ Software Engineers

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What was the problem? 💬

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• Some current customers in Trust Rules Beta had expressed that the new system was unnecessarily complex or hard to manage.

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• While there was extensive research on how this new app sharing management feature would positively benefit large organizations (1,000+ members), there was little to no evidence on how this would impact small/medium sized businesses (<1,000 members).

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• Given that past data had also shown that these smaller orgs were rarely using advanced sharing policies, stakeholders were concerned that this new feature (with it's added complexities) would result in negative reactions.

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Here’s a proposed solution...now what?

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• The team of UX designers and product managers requested research on a new concept idea called “Trust Rules Simplification” that would hypothetically address admin needs for easier app sharing management.

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• This simplification concept was proposed to be an alternative option to Trust Rules for organizations that did not need advanced settings; especially targeting small / medium sized businesses (SMBs).

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• Stakeholders wanted to know how effective and usable this concept was to determine its viability for launch.

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Admin Console

[centralized / simplified App sharing management settings]

*very non-descriptive portrayal of concept for NDA purposes

Research Questions

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Uncovering Research Goals

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Small / Medium Business Organizations

• What are the needs and pain points of admins that manage app sharing policies for their organizations?
• How does the proposed concept meet their needs?
• Are they able to easily use and understand it?

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Trust Rules Beta Customers

• What are the needs / pain points of our current customers?
• Does the proposed concept address any of their unmet needs?
• Are they able to easily use and understand it?

• What foundational research is backing up this concept? If there is a gap, how can we address this?
• Who is your target audience for this concept? Who should we recruit?
• What does “simplification” really mean? How should we measure this?

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Research Timeline

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Phase 2: Interviews + Usability Tests with Customers in Trust Rules Beta.

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Phase 2: Interviews + Usability Tests with Workspace Admins in Small/Medium-Sized Businesses.

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Phase 3: Sharing of Findings and Recommendations to Internal Stakeholders (PMs, Eng, etc.)

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Stakeholder Engagement

Research Planning

Customer Testing

Phase 1: Literature Review

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Sept 2021

October 2021

November 2021 +

Phase 1: Stakeholder Interviews + Prototype Development

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Phase 3: Sharing of Findings across other Admin Console feature teams

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In-depth Interviews + Usability Tests

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• Who: IT / Security Administrators that manage Google Workspace app sharing settings for...
• Organizations enrolled in the Trust Rules Beta program (all had more than 1,000 users). [n = 5]
• Small / Medium-sized businesses (ranging from 20-999 users) [n = 7]

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• How: Combined method of an in-depth interview + task-based usability test with 'think-aloud' approach and success rate measures.
• How: 60-minute Remote Video Call via Google Meet
• Why:
• Identify their needs and how the new concept would impact them.
• Determine concept usability challenges.
• Ideate additional ideas for how to improve their experience with app sharing settings.

Recruitment Process

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Reach out to Account Managers / Sales Representatives for recommended organizations.

Contact recommended organizations for admin participants.

Confirm and schedule participant study sessions.

Process thank you gift with support from internal incentives team.

3 - 4 weeks to recruit participants

Research Tools + Data Analysis

Research Plan

Script / Discussion Guide

Hub for notes & transcripts

Study Announcements

Study Check-Ins

Collaboration Goals

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• Stakeholder engagement: sharing of tools/resources amongst team members help to promote ongoing stakeholder collaboration & clear communication of research goals.

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• Documentation: high priority on collecting data in a way that can be consistently found by other team members for insight generation or future research.

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Tools for collaboration + data collection & analysis

User Sessions / Live Streams / Recordings

Insights Deck + Highlight Reels

Data Analysis

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• Thematic analysis: I used a grounded theory approach to qualitatively uncover insights from transcripts on excel/sheets.

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• Collaborative affinity diagramming: after uncovering initial insights, I discuss & work with other researchers and designers to distill the most important insights for broader sharing.

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Most admins thought the simplified concept was fast, easy to use, and appreciated it's ‘holistic’ and ‘global’ view.

All SMB admins found the simplified concept helpful, better than their current experience, and preferred it over Trust Rules.

All LCS admins liked the idea of centralizing settings, but expressed that the concept was too simple for their needs.

Overall admins faced some usability challenges and expressed having other sharing policy needs.

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Usability feedback included issues around unclear terminologies, navigation, and confusion around what these settings were trying to accomplish.

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Key Insights

Positive Feedback 👍

Additional Needs/Requests

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To better meet admin needs, UXR recommendations included:

Enabling admins to more easily set or navigate to other types of sharing and security settings.

Giving admins data-informed examples and guidance on how to set up their App sharing policies.

Supporting admins in viewing the impact of all their sharing controls and policies before rolling them out.

SMB Admins

LCS Admins

Concept Design Changes

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Confirmed Product Launch

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Broader Research Impact

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• Concept design changes were made based on usability insights (ex: major changes to terminology, page structure, navigation, etc.)

• Since findings confirmed that SMB admins could positively benefit from this simplification concept; the product feature was officially slated to be built and launched for GA release (general audience)! 🎉

• Study findings supported cross-platform work on providing admins data-informed insights for security / app policy management.
• This was one of the first studies that specifically investigated SMB admin needs; which provided greater evidence across admin console to invest time & resources into improving their user experience.

Research Impact

Stakeholder / Timeline Management

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Planning Next Steps / Future Research

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• Challenge:
• Due to conflicts on the concept’s design by other UXDs, Eng and PMs- the study was delayed two times; resulting in rescheduling of user sessions.
• What helped:
• Weekly meetings with the whole team to expedite and confirm design decisions.

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• Challenge:
• While all stakeholders were on-board with the concept after the research, it was difficult to set concrete milestones for product research as priorities/OKRs are constantly shifting.
• What helped:
• Advocating research findings across various admin console teams so that these changes get prioritized.

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Reflections