Braden Kowitz
Braden Kowitz is a product designer, prototyper, and storyteller. He’s also a Design Partner at Google Ventures and founded the team’s Design Studio. He advises startups on UX Design and Product Development. Before joining Google Ventures, Braden led design for several Google Products, including Gmail, Google Buzz, Google Apps for Business, Google Spreadsheets, OpenSocial, and Google Trends.
Braden started his career building virtual reality simulators at the Beckman Institute, and interactive visualizations at Lucent Technologies. Braden studied Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Human-Computer Interaction at Carnegie Mellon.
For more, keep up with Braden at kowitz.co or on Twitter as @kowitz.
Presentations
Leadership By Design 2015: Prototypes, Process & Play
Design What Really Matters
Designers love to delight customers with look and feel. But if a product doesn’t solve a real problem, customers won’t care how pretty it is. For design to be effective in a business, it needs to move beyond surface-level work and contribute to the very core of how products are developed.
This is a pragmatic talk about how designers can work differently to have a stronger role in product development. We’ll see how slowing down can help you move faster. We’ll look at ugly design that leads to great products. And we’ll learn how a careful design process can help companies take big leaps safely.
