Pioneering mobile touch operating system from concept to launch.

The Context

I was a member of the original webOS design team and helped take the platform from early sketches and concepts to version 1.0. After seven years at IDEO doing design research and interaction design, I joined Palm to experience the full arc of shipping a large, complex software product — living with the long tail of design decisions, trade-offs, and constraints that emerge between concept and release.

The Work

As Senior Interaction Designer, I led conceptual exploration, user research, and detailed interaction design across several core system applications, including Calendar, Memos, Tasks, Music, Camera, Videos, and Photos.

This work required balancing coherence across the platform with the specific needs of individual applications, all within the constraints of a new multi-touch operating system.

Calendar was a cornerstone of the Palm experience dating back to the original Palm Pilot, and it became a primary focus of my work on webOS. We defined several experience goals to guide design decisions: fully leverage the possibilities of a multi-touch interface; support multiple calendars from multiple sources; help users make the most effective use of their time; and remain as intuitive and flexible as paper. These principles shaped the interaction models, visual hierarchy, and gestures — creating behaviors that felt natural while introducing new patterns enabled by touch.

The Outcome

webOS 1.0 launched on the Palm Pre in 2009. The card-based multitasking, gesture-driven navigation, notification system, and synergy contact patterns it pioneered shaped subsequent mobile interfaces. The platform shipped on multiple devices over the following years.

Working alongside engineers daily, I began developing an approach to integrating design deeply into an engineering organization—design embedded inside engineering, not handed off to it. Shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration, fast iteration on real devices, daily trade-off conversations. That model informs what I bring to startup teams now.