Compute
Explore related services and common starting points.
Cloud Platform · Independent Concept
Helping people find their way through Google Cloud.
A navigation concept exploring how people could discover, revisit and move between services in a large cloud ecosystem.
- Role
- Product Designer
- Project
- Independent concept
- Contribution
- IA and interaction design
- Focus
- Service discovery
This independent concept was not commissioned by or affiliated with Google.
Cloud console
Search services, resources and documentation
All services
Find the right cloud service.
Data & analytics
Explore related services and common starting points.
AI & machine learning
Explore related services and common starting points.
Networking
Explore related services and common starting points.
Recently used
Virtual machines
Cloud storage
Data warehouse
Model development
01 / Context
Powerful platforms become difficult when their structure is hard to recognize.
Large cloud ecosystems contain many specialized products, technical labels and overlapping pathways into services.
The concept explores how navigation could support both new users who browse and experienced users who move quickly between familiar tools.
Core design question
How might we help people discover and move between cloud services without requiring them to memorize the platform?
02 / Approach
Treat navigation as a connected system of finding strategies.
01
Audit the landscape
Review the existing service inventory, labels, hierarchy and common paths into the product.
02
Group by user intent
Organize services around recognizable goals instead of expecting users to understand the internal product structure.
03
Support different strategies
Combine browsing, search, recent activity and saved services so users can navigate in different ways.
04
Prototype key tasks
Connect the proposed structure to realistic service-discovery and switching workflows.
03 / Navigation principles
Make complexity navigable without pretending it does not exist.
Organize around intent
Use recognizable goals and categories as entry points into the service ecosystem.
Offer multiple paths
Support browsing, search, recent activity and saved services together.
Preserve orientation
Help users understand where they are and move to related services without restarting.
Continue exploring