Long before any of us were seriously thinking about experience design a group in Silicon Valley were creating a phenomenally successful product based on all the good ideas that hadn’t been invented yet.

Most striking is how they surpassed two telecommunications giants (AT&T and Northern Telecom) to lead the digital PBX market in the 1970s.

Key to their success was talking to people (users, customers) who didn’t have switchboard solutions already. ROLM did not make switchboard solutions and they decided to focus their PBX ideas on companies that were too small to afford analogue switchboard products.

AT&T and NT were the leaders in switchboard systems and had large corporate contracts in place. As they moved into the idea of a digital PBX, they did their research primarily with these large account holders, and frequently with executives who were well removed from the day to day issues of running a switchboard (apart from cost).

These established players rapidly acquired long lists of user needs that included all the existing capabilities of analogue switchboards and only a few new ones. 

ROLM, on the other hand, talked to people who needed something that was better than the nothing that they already had. Their list of user needs emphasised just a few (relatively small) things that could make a large difference. As a result they were able to launch their product much earlier and had eager customers who were happy with the new possibilities and could give valuable feedback and help steer the priorities on new features.