As a design lead at Waymo, Google, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Kent has two decades of experience in developing visual languages that improve collaboration, comprehension, and decision-making across a wide array of products, including Google Cloud, Fitbit, Search, Alphabet’s Loon, and Waymo.
Kent led Fitbit’s Generative AI Charting program and co-founded Google’s Data Accessibility program. He previously led Google Cloud’s Data Visualization program and co-authored the data visualization specs for Material Design.
Kent’s work and ideas have appeared in many publications, including The Guardian, UXmatters, ACM journals, and Smashing Magazine. His book, Drawing Product Ideas, delivers a new and exciting guide to effectively communicating product ideas by drawing simple shapes.
Kent has presented talks and ideas at many conferences, such as IxDA’s Interaction, SXSW, The Israeli Visualization Conference, UXDX, and the World Usability Congress, and he is a frequent guest lecturer at several universities in the United States.
Upcoming Talks
12 May 2026
When we think of AI, most of us think of our interactions with Generative AI products and Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini. These products often provide rich insights that are enabling us to learn more about ourselves, each other, our communities and the broader world around us. This talk explores how visualizations can enable us to create more intuitive, informative, and engaging AI experiences.
For the past two years, Kent has led a generative charting program for Google consumer products. Using a popular fitness app as an example, this talk focuses on key lessons learned during his teams experience working with AI and data visualization. It provides guiding principles for anyone building human-centered AI data experiences, created by humans for humans.
Additionally, this talk serves as a case study on how our classic UX research and design methods are essential in this new AI-centered world.
Key takeaways
- How common UX research and design methods are essential in the age of AI
- A human-centered starting point for building AI-powered products
- Key lessons learned when leveraging data visualization in AI products.
Past Talks
11 October 2023
For the past five years, Kent has led several data visualisations programs at Google. He currently focuses on creating accessible data experiences that provide value and insights to everyone, regardless of their ability. In this session, Kent will spotlight key lessons learned while building accessible visualisations for Google products like Search, Fitbit, Loon, Quantum AI and Cloud. He will discuss techniques for generating awareness, building a community of experts and making a business case for data accessibility. Kent will share his group's accessibility-first approach to design and how standards can be used to empower teams to create better data experiences.
17 May 2023
For the past five years, Kent has led several data visualizations programs at Google. He currently focuses on creating accessible data experiences that provide value and insights to everyone, regardless of their ability. In this session, Kent will spotlight key lessons learned while building accessible visualizations for Google products like Search, Fitbit, Loon, Quantum AI and Cloud. He will discuss techniques for generating awareness, building a community of experts and making a business case for data accessibility. Kent will share his group's accessibility-first approach to design and how standards can be used to empower teams to create better data experiences.