Watson IoT Platform

Designing the next step after connectivity

IBM Watson IoT Platform was software for connecting, monitoring, and acting on large numbers of devices and assets - the foundation that allowed organizations to turn connected data into operational insight.

My work on Watson IoT Platform was where my software journey at IBM really began, shaping experiences for a platform operating at massive scale in an emerging category.

Screenshot of IBM Watson IoT Platform's device browsing page showing a list of devices with details like Device ID, Device Type, Class ID, Date Added, and Location.

The challenge

At the time, the market was full of attention on connectivity itself: getting devices online, receiving telemetry, proving the platform could connect and scale. But the real value was always going to come after that.

Once assets and devices are connected, what can users actually understand, decide, and do? That is where the product becomes meaningful.

A line chart illustrating the growth of global active IoT connections from 2015 to 2026, with projections to 2027. The chart shows data in billions, with annotations highlighting percentage increases between years. A table below the chart compares connectivity types, their CAGR for 2021-2022 and 2022-2027, and their market share, including Wireless Neighborhood Area Networks, Cellular 5G IoT, Wired IoT, LPWA, Cellular IoT excluding 5G and LPWA, Wireless Local Area Networks, Wireless Personal Area Networks, and Other.

My role

I worked on several of those next-step experiences, including information management, dashboards, real-time insights, and IBM’s first fully commercialized applied edge capability. The challenge was designing for environments where actions might need to scale across huge numbers of devices and events, while still feeling understandable and useful to the people operating them.

I also played a major role in helping the team move from a homegrown design system toward Carbon, improving consistency and giving the platform a stronger long-term foundation. That mattered not just visually, but organizationally: it reduced custom components, improved reuse, and made the product easier to evolve at speed.

What made this hard

This project taught me early that the hard part is rarely the connection itself. It’s what people are able to do once that connection exists.

Digital elevator status dashboard showing throughput, elevator floors, current elevator weight, and height usage.
Flowchart titled 'Card Communication' showing triggered rules for a device system, including rules for out of order, on fire, or lost status, and how the device triggers rules to show temperature and location information.

Result

For me, this project was an early lesson in the difference between enabling data to exist and making it genuinely useful. Connectivity is important, but what users can do next is where the real design challenge begins.

Selected outcomes

  • Contributed to a platform connecting 10M+ devices

  • Reduced custom components by 90% through adoption of Carbon

  • Helped introduce UX that reduced time to value by 50%

  • Helped shape real-time insight and management experiences

  • Contributed to a platform recognized as a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader for 5 years

Screenshot of an IBM Watson IoT Platform dashboard displaying a map of London, line and area graphs, and various widgets with data and statistics.
Screenshot of IBM Watson IoT Platform interface showing rules and settings for managing fire risk, including conditions based on temperature, ambient temperature, motor speed, and fire detection, with options to create alerts via email or ring alarm buzzer.