2022-06-16 Human Experience Working Group Meeting

• Welcome & antitrust notice

• Agenda review

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I want to make products that people love to use - not just the how (e.g. 

acquired by Palm, became head of Advanced Technologies - normally the problem that this is where products go to die.  Palm very supportive of innovation

At the time not so crazy - Android not there, iPhone not dominant.  3 ideas in UX that made it different

We need some kind of practical magic - something that brings something to life instantly, not deep in the s/w

watched people selling / buying phones - iPhone was like a shrine - where should the palm pre be - if we're in the rows of boxes we'll never stand out and compete.

all old and plasticky, and iPhone was cool  = what if we could do all these things together in a contactless way - not wired, wireless don't know what's the connected, so tapping - the physical process is a trusted experience delivered through the feedback of the tap.

started with powerpoint to present idea to senior leadership - blunt response - "apple tried this and couldn't get it to work"- so let's move from pictures to demo

"a picture might be worth a thousand words, but a demo is worth a thousand pictures"!

used it to go from office to office to show that it worked, and the all hands meeting on a tuesday

So they asked me to commit to making it happen - I agreed! - team of only 2 - no proven power tech, we needed all the electronics in back cover 

Need to catch up to the device manufacturing train.  

Demo didn't include what was needed in the commercial product

Next - hired the team

deeply immersed in non-user-centric questions - just pragmatic things

big debate about things like use of NFC standards for data exchange - 

problem with magnets in phone for example, had to be steel in device and magnets in mate

impacts UX - what is displayed to do with the orientation of the phone - lots of thought

s/w design, 

Very complex design

Within 10 months we had designed to product

remember 'practical magic'

But sadly didn't live to see production - because senior leaders so impressed with Touchstone

Interesting environment at the time - great response - I wanted more, but 

But before that could happen - great reviews but 

Do we correct this ?  but expose margins throughout the chain - seen as $65 profit for palm - but didn't want to betray to apple what it really cost us.  the PR conundrum was interesting.

Urban myth - palm & apple had a lot of execs between 2 teams and so both knew eachother well, and Steve Jobs was well aware of everything but not touchstone stealth team.

So angry he threw a touchstone against the wall - I got the biggest bonus of my career!

Problem - didn't know about data sharing beaming etc - more magic

Then HP bought palm - and HP most interested in Web OS, responding to Microsoft Windows (still dominant). 

At HP, touchstone tech was proposed...:

Now switching from ideal to making it happen - then market explodes - reliance on the chips and whole balance of risks 

We were pleased with results - you could do magical things.  

See video for commercial - actually all core tech there - but not shipped as a product

growing up in 90's - so rap fan - and in the real video is a picture of Dr Drey's medical imaging using my tech!

So much promise!  - but crash - HP changes CEO's and killed the whole mobile computing line

Sold to qualcomm and really about wireless charging - NFC and payments would come later, but data sharing never really adopted - fragmentation through IP sales

Epilogue - coming back to life w/apple

Acknowledgements

Neil Thomson - the touch is important - mechanism - the human gets it -

Manu  touch is a q that is important in building trust - 

Neil Thomson - in consent pages too long - how do we just agree an

Nicky Hickman

• One of the themes is the story of persuasion in a big organization; the political and sales process and the interaction with the product/design work.
• Another theme: biometrics were tried for accessing restricted drugs in medical wards; they found that biometric signatures worked best because the physicality of the gestures were both more trusted and more understood. Third observation: the relationship between devices and soft services is vital.
  • Manu: biometrics are readily understandable but cautious because once they're not secret, it's for life. 
• Work in ToIP community shows physical objects (tangible cards, certificates) improve perceptions of trust and behavior.
• Q. Do you think Apple's success killed or slowed innovation among device manufacturers?
  • Manu: has suppressed some innovation because of market dynamics / reality - 
• Manu: How do you make cryptography trustable to someone who doesn't understand it - maybe there's a way you can audit e.g. a ballot machine as a lay person - there is a way on the outside to watch the voting machine work - what are the tech we can use to evidence the cryptography in action
• Q. Anything you'd have done differently? Lessons learned from trying to go from idea to market?
• Many things in the touchstone universe were outside our scope to change / control e.g. HP acquisition - in start-ups you can control the focus, so in large corps you have to spend time evangilising the whole time just to stop getting de-funded. You have to be very pushy to get things done in a big company.

Phil Wolff would you have decoupled the charging from the other cool features at time IP was being sold off

Manu: out of my pay grade - they licensed to everyone - so sold a lot of the patents to Qualcomm - very acquisitive - required touchstone so was just bundled up with Web OS.