Raising the bar

As design engineers, is it our responsibility to predict what people will want, or what they will need? The technology is evolving so fast, along with the demand for increased capabilities, that the path ahead is murky, indeed.

Last year, at the end of the Internet Device Builder’s conference, I had an interesting conversation with Mark Fackler, CEO of Stellcom, Inc. (and my boss). We had just come off a successful run of conferences during which we had highlighted the Voyager (our codename for a tablet-style diskless computer running Windows CE and featuring an 802.11 wireless Ethernet link that we used to browse the Web while wandering the show floor). His major concern was how we were going to top that next year.

I must admit, I was a bit taken aback by the question. We had just garnered a significant share of attention at the Embedded Systems Conference West in San Jose, CA, and at the iDevice Builder show in New York, which is not an easy feat for a services company. Couldn’t we bask in the glory for at least a little bit longer?

Since then, however, I have come to realize the wisdom in his question. We had set the bar a little higher and have now set ourselves the task of surpassing that standard in the future. Anything less, and we would be seen as a company that had peaked and was now on the way down.

This is the conundrum facing the high-tech industry these days. In some respects it started with the development of the PC, which was the first time computer technology really became visible to the public. Until then, the customers for high technology were almost exclusively engineers or other professionals who understood that technology was a thing to be revered rather than just used.

That reverence is a key point. Engineers understand, for example, that there are major hurdles to be overcome in moving to gigahertz CPUs. Not only are we talking about shrinking chip geometries, but there are also increasing problems with RF interference and with the memory and I/O interfaces — major obstacles to realizing systems that can use a CPU that fast. The eyes of a typical user will glaze over when an engineer begins discussing these details, though. Their interest returns when you talk about availability and cost — preferably low cost. This can be difficult on the egos of engineers. We like to glorify the technology side of our business — the fact that we are making things that have never been made before — rather than the business side. The business side involves making things easy for anyone to use, and making things that are both affordable and profitable.

The communication industry certainly faces challenges along these lines. Cellular and PCS phones are a raging success because they are affordable and more convenient than previous phones. Irwin Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm has declared that wireless technology will eventually make wired connections obsolete for both voice and data.

Granted, this is a self-serving prediction, but it just might make sense. Contrast this with the problems that currently face Iridium, a technology that is potentially much more interesting to engineers but might never reach the critical mass necessary to make it popular.

The difficulty PCS faces is how to maintain its momentum. People get annoyed when they can’t communicate, rather than being impressed when they can. Incremental improvements in the network’s coverage will decrease that annoyance, but that’s not as impressive as giving customers a capability they didn’t previously have. This is the impetus behind the current generation of PCS phones that provide Web access, for exam- (Continued on page 86.) (Continued from page 88.) ple. Companies are desperately trying to live up to previous successes by adding new features to their products. Personally, I believe Web access via PCS phones will prove to be a gimmick with little future. I think the technology will lead, however, to a generation of PCS phones that enable global data communications for a variety of local devices. These phones will be able to communicate with those local devices using Bluetooth technology or a similar interface. In this scenario, the PCS phone is the gateway rather than the terminal device.

Such a capability would certainly pass the usefulness test. Given the current pricing wars over PCS phone access, it would also probably pass the cheaper cost test as well. The result would be a definite, albeit incremental, change in the lives of a significant number of people — the true test of any new technology.

While the effects of specific changes may be significant, you have to look at the aggregate effect of all these improvements to really understand how much technology is changing our lives. Within a single human lifespan, television has changed the way people see the world. The Internet has allowed them to communicate with that world, and now a new definition (so to speak) of television is about to change the rules again.

It is interesting that the reaction to recent changes to television technology (high-definition television [HDTV], for example) has been so underwhelming. I realize we are currently seeing early-adopter models that are priced accordingly, but there does not appear to be a clear path to a cheaper, better device for the consumer. Factor in the overall hesitation toward any major change, and I have to think television manufacturers are hurting at the moment. The major advantage for the consumer is purported to be a better picture, but broadcasters seem less interested in providing that quality than they are in using the additional bandwidth to expand peripheral data services.

The real test for technologies like HDTV is the response of a typical consumer. When Joe Sixpack watches a football game broadcast in HDTV, does it matter to him whether he can see individual blades of the fake grass on the field? Does he really want to control the view of the game from a selection of video feeds? If he does, will he be using those capabilities to examine the game or the cheerleaders in greater detail?

In a sense, HDTV is a misuse of technology. The stated reason for wanting the new features may be to simply enjoy sporting events in greater detail, but the true motivating factor may be something else that the user is too embarrassed to admit. The difference is important to the development of the technology, because if developers do not understand the users’ true motivation, they will not create a set of features that will move boxes. If the boxes don’t move, the technology will fail.

The most telling indictment of products that do not address the true needs of consumers is when they are received with an indifferent shrug. The consumer is saying that a product may be intellectually interesting, but that it provides no obvious benefit. If they don’t see any benefits, they won’t buy the product. It’s that simple. A prime example of this kind of consumer duplicity is the reasons they give for buying home computers. They talk a lot about using PCs to balance their checkbook or to help Junior to do his or her homework, but research shows they are most interested in state-of-the-art 3D graphics. Do you really think Junior is going to spend most of his time doing homework in 3D?

My point here is not that people lie. That is a given. My point is that if the manufacturers accept at face value the stated reasons people buy technology, they may very well create products that are not useful to the consumer. If we invented a device that allowed us to look back in time to directly observe past events, I am certain the user surveys and focus groups would concentrate on how that technology would help track the origin of life on Earth or to trace the development of civilization. On the other hand, I would be willing to bet that most people would be more interested in using it to see whether O.J. Simpson really did murder his wife — but they certainly wouldn’t say so.

As engineers, we can react to this set of circumstances in a couple of ways. We can rail against the way the world is, and try to force people to either live up to their public personas or at least admit to the existence of their dark sides enough to tell us what they really want. Either would result in a more convenient world for us, but neither scenario is very likely. The alternative is for us to understand people a little better. What forces are at work in people that prevent them from being completely honest? What is the appeal to these dark-side activities? Is there some subtle clue we can detect to help us uncover these true, if possibly embarrassing requirements?

As it happens, we do have something interesting to show at this year’s conferences. We have a combination DVD player/Internet browser/television set/home security system that mounts under cabinets in the kitchen. The picture on the LCD screen of the device is very good, offering high resolution and a wide viewing angle that was a big hit among the technically minded engineers at the Embedded Systems Conference Spring in Chicago. On the other hand, maybe it had something to do with the Madonna DVD we were playing…

Larry Mittag is vice president and chief science officer of Stellcom, Inc., a contract engineering company based in San Diego, CA. He can be reached at larry@stellcom.com .