Project 50to30
Google
2017-2022
This might be the project that I’m most proud of because I didn’t write a single word (well, not that the user could see, anyway). In fact, when the dust settled there were fewer words than when I started. That’s the mark of success for a content designer.
The problem
Just before I joined Google Play, they extended the allowed number of characters in an app name from 30 to 50, and I seemed to be the only one who noticed what a disaster it was.
App names had turned into keyword spam, with developers cramming in as many SEO-friendly terms as possible. To my horror, the apps made by Google were the worst offenders.
Long app names made the interface unusable in so many ways. Notification previews were unreadable because long app names pushed important text off the screen. App names on phone screens were truncated before the true app name even appeared. And search results seemed to go on forever and ever.
It needed to stop, and no one else was interested in making it a priority, so I decided to escalate.
The solution
I quickly realized this wasn’t something I could fix myself. The gears of Google are far too large and numerous for one writer to change which way they turn. So I started writing words, internally, to convince more powerful people that they needed to do it.
I knew that I needed to tie this initiative to larger concerns (ongoing worries about “design polish” and “fit and finish” in the store), and real problems (critical info being truncated or pushed off the side of the screen).
But my real stroke of genius, if I may be so bold, was finding the right ally. I managed to convince an influential PM that this was a critical change. She already had solid relationships with the decision makers several levels above me, and she knew how to .
The full story is a couple years long, because nothing moves fast in big orgs like this, but it ended in success. We managed to get Project 50to30 added to an existing roadmap for features that would make everything easier for developers. For example, a new tagging feature would improve discoverability without the need for keyword spam. Now app names are a maximum of 30 characters long and (mostly) much more intelligible.
It may seem like a small thing, but I love this project more than the rest because it shows that content design isn’t just about writing funny, or pretty, or simply. Sometimes, it’s also about identifying what needs to be removed … and getting someone else to do it.