Google design leader to discuss design thinking

A design leader at Google will visit Grand Valley to discuss how the search engine giant applies design thinking to its strategies, services and products.

Marty Moore, design manager and product design lead at Google, will present "Design Thinking at Google" March 24 from 6-7 p.m. in Loosemore Auditorium, located in the DeVos Center on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus.

Moore served as the lead designer for Google Wallet, Google Sheets, and is currently working with the Google Cloud team to design new developer platforms. Prior to working at Google, Moore worked at IBM designing collaboration tools for enterprise employees.

Jonathan Cook, senior finance and accounting major who interned at Google in 2015, said the company's strong user-focus ties directly with one of the primary components of design thinking — empathy.

"My role consulting with small-to-medium-sized businesses to optimize their use of several Google products used a healthy dose of empathy in every interaction," Cook said. "I spent time with each client getting to know their business objectives and worked with them to implement a solution that accomplished their needs."

Cook added that he believes Google's products and services are the best evidence of the company's commitment to the design thinking process.

"It isn't a coincidence that each of them offers great functionality while remaining intuitive and simple to use," Cook said.

This presentation is being sponsored by the Design Thinking Initiative at Grand Valley. For more information about the initiative, visit www.gvsu.edu/designthinking.