Deep Dive: Ivy Ross & Isabelle Olsson on the Early Days of Google Glass

The Core Problem: Reintegrating Digital and Physical Worlds

The fundamental idea behind Google Glass was to counteract a modern human problem: we were becoming increasingly consumed by our smartphones, physically looking down and disengaging from the present moment. The project’s vision was to merge our digital and physical experiences, allowing access to information without sacrificing presence. As Isabelle Olsson, an industrial designer on the project, recalled, an early motivating sketch depicted human evolution from walking on all fours to standing upright, only to hunch back down to look at phones. Glass was an attempt to help us “stand up straight again.” The goal was to seamlessly feather the digital world into the analog one, making information available in the moment it’s needed.

A Culture of Prototyping: The Explorer Program

Instead of developing in isolation, the Glass team embraced a philosophy of rapid, open iteration. This began with an internal “Explorer Program,” where team members would wear and test new prototypes released monthly, with codenames like “Ant,” “Bat,” “Cat,” and “Dog.” This hands-on approach was crucial for a product with no precedent.

This strategy was later extended to the public with the launch of the Glass Explorer Program, which provided the prototype to 10,000 users. It was intentionally framed not as a product, but as a “learning platform.” The goal was to co-create with a community of early adopters and understand the social and practical challenges of such a novel device. This created a powerful sense of community, but also led to a significant challenge: the world began to perceive and judge the learning platform as a finished product, creating expectations that the technology wasn’t yet ready to meet.

Human-Centric Design: Marrying Art and Technology

A central tension in the project was balancing cutting-edge technology with human factors and aesthetics. With backgrounds in art and jewelry, both Ivy Ross and Isabelle Olsson brought a crucial perspective to a team of engineers.

Key design principles and challenges included:

• Grounding the Unfamiliar: A core design philosophy was to ground the new, unfamiliar technology in something familiar. This led to a modular approach where the Glass unit could be attached to conventional eyeglass and sunglass frames, making it more digestible and comfortable for users.
• Human Factors as Hard Limits: The team learned that while technology evolves quickly, human tolerances do not. There are hard limits to the weight, heat, and behavioral changes people will accept. As Ivy Ross noted, “Unless you truly understand what people are willing to pay—with money, with time, with effort, with physical comfort or discomfort—it’s going to be hard.”
• Navigating Form Factor Debates: The team wrestled with fundamental design questions. Should it look like glasses or something entirely new? Should the display be monocular or binocular? Sunglasses were seen as a promising avenue because they naturally signal episodic use (people don’t typically wear them indoors), which could help navigate social norms.

Unforeseen Use Cases and the Pivot to Enterprise

While the consumer-facing aspects of Glass faced social friction, particularly around the camera and privacy, the Explorer Program revealed powerful “fringe” applications in professional settings. These included:

• Medical Training: Surgeons used Glass to give students a first-person view of operations.
• Assistive Technology: A psychologist developed “happy glasses” software that used facial recognition to provide cartoon-like emotional cues, helping children with Asperger’s understand social interactions.
• Manufacturing: Assembly line workers could access manuals and schematics hands-free, improving efficiency and safety.

These industrial use cases were more forgiving of the technology’s limitations (e.g., battery life, heat). This realization led to a strategic pivot and the eventual creation of Glass Enterprise Edition, which found a sustainable market.

Lessons on Timing, Moonshots, and Innovation

The team reflects that for the consumer market, Glass was ahead of its time. The technology for key components wasn’t mature enough to deliver a seamless experience in a socially acceptable form factor. However, as a moonshot project, it was a success. It “blew the door wide open” for wearables, pioneered voice interface work (like “OK, Google”), and forced crucial conversations about the social implications of technology.

The key lessons for prosecuting ambitious, moonshot projects are:

1. Respect Human Factors: Technology evolves fast, but humans evolve slowly. Never lose sight of basic human needs for comfort and familiarity.
2. Embrace Open Learning: Don’t be afraid to build in public, but be maniacally clear about expectations. Framing a project as a “learning platform” is powerful but requires careful management of public perception.
3. Timing is Everything: You have to start paddling before the wave arrives, but not so early that you exhaust yourself. The goal is to be the “right amount too early.” Glass was too early to be a mass-market consumer hit, but it set the stage for a future wave of technology.

• Tags:
• Prototyping
• Feature
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Innovation
• Product Design
• Google Glass
• Wearable Technology
• Moonshot Thinking