Palm webOS
Pioneering mobile touch operating system from concept to launch
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 as a design research and interaction design consultant at IDEO, 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.
Working shoulder to shoulder with engineers, I began developing an approach to integrating design deeply into an engineering organization. These lessons later shaped my work with startups and founding teams.
Role and Responsibilities
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 Design
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.
Early conceptual explorations.
Example wireframe of event details view.
Detailed design of system wide date picker.
Design for calendar reminders.
Final month view design.
Final day view design.
Final event details view design.
“The Calendar app is where the Palm Pre really shines.”