Ryan Vernon • Senior UX Designer
I work at Google in NYC, designing developer products for Firebase and more. Previously, I worked as a mechanical engineer at OXO, and an Industrial designer of furniture and toys.
I work at Google in NYC, designing developer products for Firebase and more. Previously, I worked as a mechanical engineer at OXO, and an Industrial designer of furniture and toys.
I created a fully functional digital replica of the OP-1 groovebox by Teenage Engineering—a hardware interface that actually works right in the browser, simplified to fit on a mobile phone. It was a challenge to figure out what to cut when the original hardware is packed with features for synthesizers, drums, recording, mixing, and sequencing. I designed it to keep the original hardware workflow intact while adding extra storage and the ease of use of a touch interface. Try it yourself here.
As the UX lead for our SQL database solution, the most requested product in Firebase history, I spearheaded the end-to-end design strategy over a multi-year journey from concept to launch at I/O’24. Partnering closely with Product Management and Engineering, I helped define a robust MVP that successfully captured Firebase’s signature "magic" and ease of use. Together, we established a foundational user experience designed to scale seamlessly for years to come.
I'm particularly proud of the novel schema card design which is less expensive than a wired node diagram. I designed everything down to the logo, and helped to pivot from Data Connect and GraphQL to SQL Connect.
At OXO, a brand fundamentally driven by design excellence, I worked as a Product Engineer bringing human-centered products to the mass market. I began on the Strategic design team, leading exploratory investments into brand-new product categories such as task lighting and the initial launch of the OXO Tot kids line.
Transitioning to the Storage and Organization team, I inherited engineering development on OXO's iconic POP Container ecosystem. Throughout these initiatives, I collaborated directly with top-tier external design agencies including IDEO and Smart Design to bridge visionary concepts with what we could manufacture.
I moved to establish OXO’s first in-house Industrial Design team. This shift has saved millions of dollars in royalties.
It is very rewarding to be included on so many patents: High Chair, Magnetic Tack, Nesting Trash can, Turntable, Bidirectional outlet, and the Tea ball.
This product is a complex database program because it crosses 2 PAs (Firebase and Cloud). Each have their own OKRs and design language. I built a strong relationship across this divide to strategize together. The design of the query builder is an exemplary model for how to align goals to a larger product or program initiative.
Picking a database was a constant problem. My influence solved this by getting alignment on a direction for a new information architecture in which a new dashboard was added displaying valuable usage metrics before the resource picker appears.
Now we’re seeing exponential growth as this has become the de facto database solution for AI Studio users.
Hand crafted art means something more today than it did before the age of AI. I vibe coded Handset in Antigravity to turn a single photo of your handwritten alphabet into an installable OpenType font in about a minute.
Gemini detects every character on your sheet so you can tweak baselines and crop widths before tracing your ink into four weights—complete with a playful marker-in-hand animation and a community gallery.
Try it yourself at handset-867c3.web.app.
In an effort to signal enterprise maturity, Firebase underwent an expensive rebrand that designed out the very warmth and charm that made developers fall in love with us in the first place. Zero-state illustrations, once prime real estate for personality and encouragement, were flattened into generic UI icons.
Recognizing that our customers are younger and less experienced than before thanks to vibe coding, I pitched a portfolio-wide return to delight. I built the business and creative case for re-infusing playful storytelling into our empty states, leveraging AI asset generation to deliver high-craft, joyful touchpoints without enterprise-scale production overhead.
Working as both a Mechanical Engineer and Industrial Designer at Hoberman Associates, I specialized in transforming complex kinetic geometry and expanding mechanisms into engaging consumer toys and structural puzzles.
Hoberman is globally renowned for its iconic expanding sphere toy. My mandate was to re-engineer the original expanding mechanism into a cost-effective product line geared for girls, featuring modular attachment points for custom snap-on accessories. The piece I am most proud of designing is the Switch Pitch, a kinetic toy ball that flips inside-out in mid-air when thrown to instantly change colors.
Building upon the patented tetrahedron mechanism, I contributed to adapting it to a puzzle toy and a transforming baby rattle.
As generative AI moved toward real-time dynamic interfaces, I led UX design and established the design system for Flutter’s GenUI Kit in collaboration with Product Management. Aimed at 3rd-party developers, the kit allows AI agents to construct bespoke, contextual mobile experiences on the fly. I designed the interactive Awesome Cruise Lines showcase app to demonstrate key agentic patterns, such as dynamic UI cards and multi-step booking flows . The prototype served as the primary demo across executive reviews, validating the architecture and securing buy-in for the full Flutter GenUI initiative.
The name combines the Latin and Greek roots for sonare (sound) and kroma (color). I built it as a way to promote my own musical compositions with a visualization that makes my YouTube channel more engaging.
Releasing it as a free tool for anyone to play and customize also helps to get my music out there. Try it yourself at SonaKroma.web.app.
Choosing a health plan at Google usually means wading through a dense, overwhelming spreadsheet. I vibe coded this prototype in Antigravity to make the decision friendly, intuitive, and transparent—taking inspiration from Oscar Health's warm, approachable design.
A stepped questionnaire guides you through coverage tiers, expected doctor visits, prescriptions, and major care events. A live-updating bar chart and plan comparison table adapt in real time to show true estimated annual costs—factoring in payroll premiums, out-of-pocket copays and deductibles, Google's HSA contribution, and state-specific plan options.
I was the lead designer for Firebase Phone Number verification, a new product and service for Android which bypasses the need to get one time verifications texted to you. The MVP of the product started with a short list of big name partners and the onboarding was in the Google Cloud Console. Now we are GA and the onboarding keeps the user within the Firebase console so there is less churn.
This project was inspired by the physical instrument called Orbita. So I tried to recreate a digital version of it. At the time all vibe coded prototypes were using standard UI libraries and this was an experiment to do something unique, and push the envelope. The fun part is slowing it down like a turntable, and reversing it. Don't forget to turn your sound on. Try it out.
As the UX lead for App Hosting, I co-designed it alongside Marissa Christy, architecting the next-generation successor to Firebase’s popular Hosting CDN product. Moving beyond traditional static web hosting, we designed an intuitive experience optimized from the ground up to support modern web frameworks. This included finalization of the first GitHub integration for Firebase, as well as an update to our top nav resource selection across our entire design system.
I’m currently driving the UX strategy to merge App Hosting with Hosting Classic and rebranding it as Cloud Run.
This is inspired by the famous drum machine made by Roland. This project started in AI Studio and then I moved to Antigravity in order to finish it. You can try it out for yourself here. Don't forget to turn your sound on.
The OP-1 is a famous synthesizer designed by Teenage Engineering that has a fun interface in which the knobs are color coded to the display. The OP-XY is its successor with a different workflow and a grayscale display that can be confusing. So I took it upon myself to reimagine the interface by adding color back in again. We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
I built the-book-buddy.web.app to help me enjoy books more by visualizing the characters and their relationships that grows as the story progresses. It works with all books in the public domain. You can generate your own summary companions, and also full graphic novels for a fee. Every character portrait and comic panel is generated with AI to match the artistic style of the time period the book takes place in. I built a custom agent skill that drives the layouts using sequential art principles, dynamic multi-row panel grids, and vision checks so speech bubbles never cover a character's face and the most important passages get the biggest picture. And you can even print out the book to get a physical copy mailed to you.
I have a particular passion for data visualization which stems from my engineering background. My work spans across PAs working on the Cloud Data Vis spec, the public Material spec, and the Firebase spec. My work has been published in Fast Company with the famous googler Manuel Lima, and he has been awarded a utility patent for an interactive display of distribution charts. This work involved creating a beautiful palette that is accessible.
As an Industrial Designer with Thomas O’Brien, I designed luxury furniture and lighting collections that balanced classic vintage craftsmanship with modern manufacturing scale.
A core highlight of my work was designing a flagship line of accessible flat-pack furniture for Target's Vintage Modern collection. I engineered modular joint structures and flat-pack assembly systems that allowed high-end designer aesthetics to be produced efficiently and assembled effortlessly by consumers.
In parallel, I developed high-end heirloom furniture for Hickory Chair—focusing on rich wood joinery and premium upholstery details—as well as architectural decorative lighting lines for Visual Comfort, combining hand-finished metals and blown glass.
