What is secondary research in UX?
Secondary research is collecting and synthesizing data that has been published to answer the specific research question(s). Secondary data can come from articles, books, research reports, etc.
In this article, I will share with you the results of the secondary research I conducted on Google to;
1) learn about its history,
2) discover its technological innovation,
3) how the technology is used to enhance the user experience.
I used 21 resources (print and online) to write this report. The names, dates, and titles in the parentheses are the sources of the citations. A citation is the mention of someone’s work, and you need to cite sources in secondary research.
Two common methods employed in secondary research synthesis are;
· Paraphrasing: explaining things with your words, and
· Quoting: borrowing something directly and as is from a secondary source and presenting it with quotation marks.
In both methods, you should cite your sources.
Here is my report on Google:
How did the world’s most popular search engine come to life? Curiosity.
Everything began with a question: How can I find out “which web pages link to a given page, based on the consideration that the number and nature of such backlinks was valuable information about that page?” (“History of Google — Wikipedia,” 2022).
This question, asked by one of Google’s co-founders, paved the way for a strong business partnership and resulted in a technology company that not only dominates the web search today but also creates countless products and services in an assortment of areas ranging from driverless cars to speech recognition systems.
Google History
The year was 1996. Two Stanford University Ph.D. students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin started a research project called BackRub in their campus offices. BackRub was a search engine algorithm that was based on backlinks to assess the value of a web page (“How we started and where we are today — Google UK,” 2022). The web search at that time was done based on keywords.
However, Page and Brin had a different vision for the future of web search. On a foundational basis, BackRub provided them with the insight to focus on the rank of the web pages. Thus, they created an even more powerful algorithm called PageRank, which assessed the rank of web pages based on how many other web pages were linked to them, and they received far more accurate results than all the existing web search engines (“History of Google — Wikipedia,” 2022).
This was a revolutionary move at the time. However, despite this being the case, they struggled to start their company due to financial restrictions. Only two years later, in 1998, they received $100,000 in funding from their first investor, Andy Bechtolsheim (“How we started and where we are today — Google UK,” 2022) after they presented their idea, and Google was born at a friend’s garage in Menlo Park, California (“History of Google — Wikipedia,” 2022).
The name
The name Google comes from the mathematical term googol, which is the number one followed by a hundred zeros (“Google | History & Facts,” 2022). This is a direct reference to the binary code consisting of ones and zeros, which fits the founders' computer science background.
Google Timeline
Google’s history goes hand in hand with the innovations the company has brought to life.
Google's success comes from the powerful ranking system enabled by its algorithm. Even though it was still a new company, Google managed to index close to 60 million web pages by the end of 1998 (“Google | History & Facts,” 2022). In 2000, Google started running the search for the most popular site at the time: Yahoo! (“Google | History & Facts,” 2022). In 2001, Google purchased Deja, the basis of Google Groups. This was Google’s first acquisition (Luke Stangel, 2018). In 2003, with the acquisition of Pyra Labs, owner of the Blogger website, Google increased its domain for internet search with large amounts of data gathered from blog postings. This elevated the speed and relevance of Google search. (“Google | History & Facts,” 2022).
The year 2004 is the year of several achievements. Gmail was offered as a beta product. Google Print, which was later changed to Google Books, was born, and Google entered into dictionaries as a verb (“Google | History & Facts,” 2022). In 2005, Google Earth was introduced, and Google Video was launched. (“Google | History & Facts,” 2022). Google entered the mobile operating systems market with the acquisition of Android Inc. In 2006, YouTube was purchased, Google Apps (Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Google Page Creator) were introduced, and Google was listed on the Standard and Poor’s 500 (S&P 500) stock index. (“Google | History & Facts,” 2022).
In the years 2006 and 2007, Google Docs was created out of a combination of purchasing and developing several business programs. (“Google | History & Facts,” 2022). Google Chrome was released in 2008. T-Mobile G1, the first phone to use the new operating system with one-touch Google searches, Google Docs, Google Earth, and Google Street View, was released in 2008. (“Google | History & Facts,” 2022). In 2010 Google Buzz was launched, and the Nexus One smartphone, also known as the Google Phone, was released. The phone, featuring the latest version of Android, was equipped with voice recognition software, amongst other innovative design features. In 2011, Google+ was launched. Between 2012 and 2013, Chromecast was launched (History of Google — From 1996 to 2021, 2019).
In 2014, Google bought DeepMind, a U.K.-based artificial intelligence company (Ray, 2022). In 2015, Google became a subsidiary company under Alphabet Inc. and released a new logo. 2016 saw the Launch of the Google Pixel ‘First phone made by Google’ (Ray, 2022). This was also the year that Google Assistant was introduced (“Google’s 20th anniversary: how the world’s best search engine ate the world”, 2022).
Today, Google provides a large number of products categorized as web-based tools, developer tools, operating systems, desktop applications, mobile applications, hardware, and services. (“List of Google products — Wikipedia,” 2022).
Technological Innovation
Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful” (“How we started and where we are today — Google UK,” 2022).
The company has followed this mission statement consistently since the beginning, even when it doesn’t make profits. (“Reverse Engineering Google’s Innovation Machine,” 2022).
Google has kept improving over the years through developing new technologies (e.g., Bigtable- the company’s database program) and/or purchasing them from other companies (e.g., Urchin for web analytics). According to Harvard Business Review, Google is able to continue going after its mission statement due to “having a sufficiently profitable product to cover the cost of unprofitable innovations” (“Reverse Engineering Google’s Innovation Machine,” 2022).
A majority of Google’s revenue comes from generating profits from its search engine. Even though Google did not invent search engine marketing, it has been in the dominating role since its early stages, thanks to AdWords (“Search engine marketing — Wikipedia,” 2022). Through AdWords, the company brings in not just revenue but new partnerships, which brings even more profits to the company, and that results in the freedom to be creative at the cost of capital losses.
Innovation requires sailing in unknown waters and taking risks in new territories.
However, with the right mindset, taking risks could easily be considered part of a company’s journey. With both co-founders coming from a scientific background, research is celebrated at Google and is one of the major ways to innovate. According to an Inc Magazine, Google spends astronomical amounts of money each year on research and development. This is a solid explanation for how a company could have as diverse a project profile “ from driverless cars and solar-powered contact lenses to pills that search the body for disease” (“4 Things Google Does to Remain One of the World’s Most Innovative Companies”, 2022) as Google.
Apart from funding research, Google is known for its set innovation rule, which requires engineers to devote 20% of their time to new projects. Inc.com notes that Google News, Gmail, and AdSense came out of this 20% innovation rule (“4 Things Google Does to Remain One of the World’s Most Innovative Companies”, 2022). It also greatly nudges the workers to be creative as part of their job and creates a company culture that inspires innovation.
Google puts a huge emphasis on collaboration, and through that, it has created an ecosystem where workers are learning from each other but also from the users, the company partners, and anyone who would like to make contributions to products and services. This comes from the company culture of “learning from outsiders” (“4 Things Google Does to Remain One of the World’s Most Innovative Companies”, 2022).
As a result of this culture, Google “invites about 30 top scholars to spend sabbaticals at Google” and funds several hundred research projects every year (“How Google Innovates,” 2022). The academic research community is quickly drawn to this invite due to Google’s extensive lab, colossal data collection, the most innovative computing architecture that can be found, and the opportunity to publish freely. This active partnership with the academic research community benefits both parties and makes way for groundbreaking innovations.
Another powerful way of fueling innovation is Google’s use of feedback in the work environment. The company provides space for the researchers and product teams to collaborate during the product's design, creation, and improvement. This active feedback loop enables faster and better products and future ideas emerging from existing ones.
Moreover, Google employs a combination of feedback ideas, enriching its strategies rather than relying on one strategy at a time (“How Google Innovates,” 2022). This is also referred to as Google Innovation Ecosystem, where Google is the key player controlling innovators, content providers, advertisers, and consumers. (“How Google Innovates,” 2022).
The freedom to work on what the workers want without asking for permission and getting constant feedback from the Google Innovation Ecosystem is what creates a unique environment for creativity.
How the technology is used to enhance the user experience
At Google, the user experience is enhanced through innovation.
Investopedia, a financial media website, summarizes the company culture as “innovating first, getting the real user data second, and worrying about monetizing afterward” (“The Story Behind Google’s Success,” 2022). Products created through a rich collaboration between engineers, designers, content providers, and advertisers are directly tested on users through beta versions. Immediate feedback is received from the consumers changes and improvements are made to the product on the fly to provide a better user experience.
More importantly, Google adapts to the changing times and constantly finds ways to respond to the new needs of the users. In the last couple of years, Google has been concentrating on Deep Learning with Google Brain and working on such projects as artificial-intelligence-devised encryption system, image enhancement, Google Translate, robotics, interactive speaker recognition with reinforcement learning (“Google Brain — Wikipedia,” 2022). DistBelief, a first-generation machine learning system, was incorporated into several Google products, such as Google Maps, Google Translate, and even YouTube, and improved the services these products deliver (“How Google Innovates,” 2022).
There is also a great emphasis on Artificial Intelligence with Google AI (“Google AI — Wikipedia,” 2022). TensorFlow, an open-source library for machine learning and artificial intelligence (“TensorFlow — Wikipedia,” 2022), enables the training of deep neural networks. Thanks to the open-source nature of TensorFlow, anyone can use TensorFlow to improve their products (“How Google Innovates,” 2022). A good example is how TensorFlow has made Google voice search more efficient by reducing the error rate from the 20% range to less than 10%. Google has also used TensorFlow to create Smart Reply, which “which offers recommendations to respond to incoming messages” (“How Google Innovates,” 2022).
Conclusion
With a hunger for creativity and patience to keep the eyes on the prize, rather than being tackled by minor obstacles on the way and losing steam, Google sets the bar considerably high for a technology company. Since its early beginnings, Google has proven itself to be at the front row for innovation while creating a company culture that is constantly putting its workers first, dog-friendly (“How we started and where we are today — Google UK,” 2022), and that holds Friday meetings with beer (“Reverse Engineering Google’s Innovation Machine,” 2022).
Twenty-four years after its foundation, Google still deeply impacts every industry it touches and inspires other companies to follow its lead. It also shows the world that you do not have to chase profit blindly to be successful, but when you strive for finding solutions to the problems around you and learn from users while building products and services, profit chases you.
Google's story holds a crucial place in the narrative of technological innovations and should be shared with anyone who carries a spark for innovation in them.
Last words
This is the second research report I shared on this platform. (Read the first one on Tesla by clicking on this link.)
Your report could be shorter or longer than mine, depending on your purpose and the wishes and desires of the stakeholders (if) involved in the process.
A good rule of thumb in secondary research is to be as extensive as needed.
I hope seeing a sample report helps you understand the process.
Thank you for reading.
