Moving on, with sadness and excitement
One of the trickiest things in life is to know when to move on. From a project, from a relationship, from a job. I've been thinking a lot about this lately since I recently made the decision to move on from my role as Director of User Experience at YouTube.
Even typing that is hard to do. I love YouTube as a product more than anything I've ever worked on before. And the team I've had the pleasure of building and leading is one of the best in the industry. It's filled with talent, and fun, and team work, and kindness.
The past few years I've spent at YouTube, and the two before that leading UX for Google Search, have been extraordinary. I learned more about the craft of UX, creative management, and myself than I learned in the 10 years prior. I am exceptionally proud of the work we've done to build a robust practice of design and user research within the YouTube organization. And the proof is in the pudding: our redesign of YouTube.com in late 2011 was the biggest redesign in the company's history, and represents a serious raising of the bar for quality of design within the company.
Even typing that is hard to do. I love YouTube as a product more than anything I've ever worked on before. And the team I've had the pleasure of building and leading is one of the best in the industry. It's filled with talent, and fun, and team work, and kindness.
The past few years I've spent at YouTube, and the two before that leading UX for Google Search, have been extraordinary. I learned more about the craft of UX, creative management, and myself than I learned in the 10 years prior. I am exceptionally proud of the work we've done to build a robust practice of design and user research within the YouTube organization. And the proof is in the pudding: our redesign of YouTube.com in late 2011 was the biggest redesign in the company's history, and represents a serious raising of the bar for quality of design within the company.
But one of the most frequent pieces of advice I give is to leave on an up note. And that is what I've decided to do. Friday, April 20th, will be my last day as the Director of UX for YouTube. And I am so excited to announce that starting in late May, I'll be joining Facebook as Director of Product Design, leading the team focused on ad products. This is such an amazing time for Facebook as a company and as a social phenomenon. I'm itching to learn as much as I can from my new colleagues about the amazing plans for the future and to be a part of making the next generation of advertising experiences the best the world has ever seen, and to work alongside the larger product design team to help chart the course for this product that is changing the world in so many ways.
But first, I'll take a month off (yay!), so prepare for more blog posts, including one that lists all of the ideas my kids suggested for how I should spend my 4 weeks off. My favorite among their suggestions? "Submit several snarky working-mother definitions to Urban Dictionary." :)
But first, I'll take a month off (yay!), so prepare for more blog posts, including one that lists all of the ideas my kids suggested for how I should spend my 4 weeks off. My favorite among their suggestions? "Submit several snarky working-mother definitions to Urban Dictionary." :)