Apple and the voice of the customer


Fast Company has an interview from Bob Messerschmidt, who had worked on the Apple Watch. Messerschmidt was brought into Apple after his company was purchased by Apple. His company focused on health sensors.

He has an interesting take on implementing the sensors in to the Apple watch. Originally he proposed putting the sensors on the band so it made contact with the underside of the wrist where it could get the best measurement. That didn't fly because Apple knew customers would want to have different bands and putting the sensor on the band would make that impractical. He also suggested to put the sensor on the top of the wrist, but the band must be worn tightly. Again, his team was challenged to find a better solution because people generally don't wear watches tightly.

They are the voice of the user. There's the whole field of Industrial Design that focuses on the use case, the user experience.

Engineers left in a vacuum might say "well, that's maybe not so important; we can get a better signal by doing it the other way so let's do it that way." So, left to their own devices, that would be the way the product would end up. So you have to have a really strong voice supporting the user. I think the idea of focusing on that is uniquely Apple. In an optimistic sense you have to say that still exists at Apple. It does.