Nearby Share

Nearby Share

Driving product growth and engagement

Overview

Nearby Share (now known as “Quick Share”) enables seamless file transfer across devices within the Google ecosystem—essentially, an “AirDrop for Google.” It was first launched on ChromeOS in 2021 with a basic end-to-end experience that allowed users to share images, links and files.

I joined the Nearby Share team as the UX lead in early 2022 to envolve the MVP to a more seamless and engaging experience. My immediate goal was to reduce friction in the user journey to drive adoption, and foster cross‑functional collaboration to align on design improvements.

Experiments and Quick Wins

I worked closely with the data scientist and researcher to discover major hurdles, and hosted a design sprint to align the team on the insights as well as brainstorm on opportunities.

Optimized Onboarding Setup

I led a quick design experiment to streamline the onboarding flow by consolidating multiple steps into a single, intuitive setup screen with default settings. I collaborated with the PM, engineer and data scientist to iterate rapidly and validate the solution through A/B testing.

Impact:

  • Onboarding success rate increased by 65%.
  • Median onboarding time was reduced by 68%.
Onboarding

Background Scanning for Proactive Prompts

To make the transfer easier, we collaborated with Android on enabling ChromeOS to detect when a nearby device attempted to share a file and automatically prompt the receiver to enter high-visibility mode. This streamlined experience brought us in line with Android’s functionality and boosted sharing usage significantly.

Background scanning

Seamless Wi-Fi Credential Sharing

In addition, we added support for Wi-Fi credential sharing between Android phones and Chromebooks. This low-effort enhancement, prototyped and tested rapidly, directly addressed a user pain point and improved Nearby Share’s usability without significant engineering resources.

Defining and Executing a Strategy

Recognizing that immediate improvements were just the beginning, I collaborated with the PM and engineers to set a long-term strategy for Nearby Share. This process include:

  • Deep-Dive Analysis:

    • Reviewed conversion funnels and end‑to‑end user flows.
    • Identified opportunities through data analysis and qualitative research.

  • Collaborative Workshops & Ideation:

    • Organized and led cross‑functional workshops.
    • Facilitated thought exercises with PMs to brainstorm and align on a strategic roadmap.
    • Explored integrations with the broader ChromeOS ecosystem.

  • Prioritization & Roadmap Alignment:

    • Collaboratively stack‑ranked initiatives with key stakeholders.
    • Ensured our roadmap directly supported annual OKRs and broader business goals.

With leadership buy‑in in the strategy, we successfully launched two major 2023 initiatives:

Wi-Fi Direct Optimization - An engineering-led improvement that significantly accelerated file transfer speeds, in collaboration with the Connectivity team.

Self Share - Research revealed that many users frequently shared files with themselves. I co-designed with Android UX to optimize this user flow, reducing sharing time by 20%. Today, self‑share accounts for roughly 2/3 of all Nearby Shares transfers.

Self Share

Summary

By building on the initial Nearby Share MVP, we transformed it into a refined, and user-centric experience. Through data-informed insights and cross-functional collaboration, we strategically aligned product design initiatives with broader business objectives. This resulted in significant improvements in user engagement and product adoption across the Google ecosystem.

Curious to know more? Reach out to me at hey.menghan@gmail.com