Original Content
Role UX Lead
Company Google
For years, rewrites often outranked investigative journalism in Google Search. I launched a design that elevates original reporting front and center. Today, users can more easily recognize, trust, and engage with investigative work.
A journalist spends weeks investigating a story. They hit publish. Very quickly, other writers begin rehashing the same scoop. Within minutes, the original piece is bumped off the Search page while the copycat pieces get equal or greater traffic.
For users, identifying original material is a top friction point, affecting roughly one-third of news sessions. Publishers and Google knew this was an issue, and needed to deliver a solution.
An effort rooted in mission
I began by defining “original content” in product terms, moving beyond an engineering definition of ‘the first published article’ by defining investigative journalism, scientific studies, and deeply sourced reporting. This prompted engineering to invest in identifying these types and allowed me to give them differentiated treatment in Top Stories.
From there, I sketched and prototyped UI options—from badges and labels to grouping and ranking changes. Users responded best when originals were visually distinct but still integrated into the carousel.
I then refined the design to balance elevation with ecosystem fairness: strong enough to highlight originals, subtle enough not to overwhelm other news.
Crafting frameworks and systems thinking
The redesign rolled out first in the U.S., then globally. It drove a substantial increase in high-quality clicks, faster interactions, and improved overall engagement. Users in UXR studies reported greater trust and clarity, while publishers saw stronger recognition for original work.
If I revisited the project today, I’d explore richer metadata—author reputation, funding source—and AI-informed personalization that brings investigative journalism to the audiences who value it most.