Emily Thomas
Google

Drive Viewing Information Architecture

As the Drive View UX Lead, I transformed the legacy Workspace file view into a consumption platform. While Workspace is primarily known for its file editors, 87% of files viewed are actually third-party file types—such as PDFs, images, and videos. Leading the design direction for a multidisciplinary team, I established a scalable information architecture and launched 14 features that drove a 20% increase in CSAT across 1.7B weekly views, reframing Drive from a passive activity into an interactive, intelligent workspace.

Drive file viewer header with the file menus and toolbar called out

Context

Business Context

Improving PDF and Video consumption became a core pillar of Drive's 2025 strategy, with a focus on delivering a first-class experience. The goal was to make Drive the platform of choice for PDF workflows—eliminating the need for third-party tools and enabling users to work more efficiently within a single ecosystem.

Key Insights

While Workspace is best known for its native Editors, user behavior told a different story:

  • PDFs and Images are the top consumed file types in Workspace
  • 1.7B weekly views across Drive
Problems

Despite their importance, the PDF, Video, and Images experience had remained largely unchanged for years.

  • Users frequently had to leave Drive to fill forms, annotate, or edit PDFs
  • Navigating PDFs and Video is complex
  • Fragmented workflows created friction and exposed competitive gaps with specialized tools
Solution

Led a multi-year modernization roadmap focused on closing the competitive gap and elevating the PDF, Video, and Image experience:

  • Viewing improvements
  • PDF Form filling
  • Editing and annotation
  • Navigation

Process

Information Architecture Framework

To accommodate a rapidly expanding roadmap, I designed a scalable information architecture framework. This system ensured new features could integrate seamlessly without disrupting the core user experience as the product evolved.

Taxonomy

Defined taxonomy into categories and insert tools with a team card-sorting exercise.

Categories

  • Navigation

    • Table of content
    • Thumbnail preview
    • Find in document
    • Page number

  • Executive actions

    • Undo
    • Zoom
    • Insert pages
    • Rotate pages
    • Layout

  • Insert

    • Text
    • Signature
    • Shape
    • Lines
    • Highlight
    • Add comment
    • Free hand markup
    • Select annotation

  • Collaboration

    • Add comment

  • GenAI

    • Sidekick

  • File actions

    • Download
    • Print
    • Save
    • Share
    • Comments
Insert tools

  • Text

    • Font
    • Size
    • Bold
    • Italic
    • Underline
    • Strikethrough
    • Paragraph
    • Color

  • Signature

    • Signature
    • Initials

  • Shape

    • Shape
    • Color

  • Line

    • Thickness
    • Color

  • Highlight

    • Color

  • Free hand markup

    • Line type
    • Color
Strategic Placement

Leveraging Workspace precedents for navigation and collaboration; focusing design optimization strictly on viewing and markup toolbar positioning.

Workspace Alignment Session

I organized an information architecture alignment session with the Google Slides team, who were also updating their IA, to define a unified Workspace strategy. We explored two directions:

  1. Align with Editors to ensure cross-product consistency (Moved forward with this direction)
  2. Create a new system for third-party files using modern Google Material 3 patterns

While I felt the Editor toolbar was dense and dated, leadership chose alignment with Editors for cross-product consistency.

Option 1 - Align with Editors

Option 2 - Create a new system

IA options

Defined Principles

Established guiding principles to inform product decisions, align cross-functional teams, and ensure a consistent experience. These principles created a shared framework for evaluating tradeoffs, prioritizing features, and maintaining a cohesive user experience as the product evolved.

Scalable

A flexible system that scales across other Drive Viewing file types and won't break with new features

Progressive

Reveal options as the user dives deeper into workflows

Contextual

Lean on AI to provide contextual nudges that allow the user to shortcut cumbersome tasks

Familiar

It feels like an Editor so I don't have to think or relearn new patterns

Two-part system

IA framework for unified navigation

Toolbar Designs

While building on the Editors toolbar pattern, I evolved it to align with Google Material 3's updated shape and toolbar guidelines, improving visual clarity and scannability. Partnering with Video and eSignature UX leads, I also drove design convergence across tools into a standardized system aligned with the Workspace design system and familiar user mental models.

Toolbar design

Short-term toolbar

Short-term toolbar design

Long-term toolbar

Long-term toolbar vision

In context

Short-term toolbar in the PDF viewer

File Menus

Problem
  • Actions aren't easily discoverable
  • Missing features, like Make a copy
  • Menus inconsistent across Overlay and Standalone file viewer
File menu issues
File menu audit

Conducted a comprehensive audit of the File menu to identify inconsistencies across surfaces and file types, then established a unified taxonomy aligned with Editors — standardizing groupings, iconography, and keyboard shortcuts for a more predictable experience.

File menu audit
Utilized Drive's existing menu component

The Editors recently updated their file menus. To keep navigation familiar, we aligned with their IA, language, and icons.

File Menu Designs

Drive menu component
PDF menu interaction

Landing metrics

Launched 14 features to close the competitive gap and established unified navigation framework across Drive's file view—impacts 1.7 billion weekly views.

  • 20% increase in CSAT: 74%
  • 7% decrease in DSAT: 12%

What I learned

Defining clear product principles helped the team move faster and make more consistent decisions. They provided a shared framework for evaluating tradeoffs and kept design and engineering aligned as we delivered a large set of foundational features.

This work reinforced that even when building standard capabilities, maintaining alignment across teams requires ongoing leadership and clarity of vision.