Design Notes

← Design Notes14 jan 2025 · 52 min

Beauty Across the Board: Rich Fulcher on Making Beauty a UX Priority at Google

Beauty Across the Board: Rich Fulcher on Making Beauty a UX Priority at Google14 jan 202552 min

This season's special series celebrating ten years since the launch of Material Design closes out with Rich Fulcher, former Google UX director and Material design lead. Fulcher remembers the career-defining journey of creating Material, what it was like to make beauty a UX priority, how to pressure test a system, and what he's learned about world-building across disciplines. Today, he's creating board games, continuing to apply the design-thinking and problem-solving skills developed during his time at Google.

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(00:45) - Intro

(07:02) - What's a Designer?

(09:37) - Design as a Mindset

(10:17) - Google Before Material

(15:21) - Beauty as a Priority

(17:24) - Mission Statement as a Design Challenge

(18:29) - What is Beauty?

(22:47) - Design System Worldbuilding

(25:19) - Pressure Testing