Signal acquisition without surveillance

Signal acquisition without surveillance: a minimal telemetry blueprint

Non-invasive signals flowing through a system without surveillance

Published: 14 Jan 2026 · Category: Signals · Back to Notes

Most teams do not need emotion detection. They need a way to spot friction and recovery points early, then redesign the interaction to reduce pressure.

This note is a minimal blueprint for “signal acquisition” that keeps you away from surveillance patterns. It focuses on system-level signals and opt-in feedback. It is compatible with privacy-by-design and it scales across web and mobile.

Principle 1: Measure the interaction, not the person

Prefer signals like loops, time-to-complete, retries, and abandon points. Avoid biometric inference, sentiment prediction, or any attempt to guess mental state.

Principle 2: Keep telemetry explainable

If you cannot explain a metric in one sentence, do not collect it. Your goal is to make design decisions, not to build a hidden risk model.

Principle 3: Separate “quality signals” from “security signals”

Security logging and fraud detection are different problems. If you mix them, you create pressure and you create mistrust. Treat calm design telemetry as a quality signal with short retention and strict minimisation.

Minimum viable telemetry (MVT)

Start with a small set of events that identify friction and recovery. Keep identifiers ephemeral.

Event	What it tells you	Why it is safe
`step_view`	Which step users reached	No personal content, only flow position
`step_complete`	Time-to-complete and drop-off points	Pure interaction timing
`error_shown`	Where the system fails users	Captures the system state, not user identity
`retry`	Loops and repeated attempts	Highlights design pressure and ambiguity
`help_open`	Confusion points	Tracks need for clarity
`save_and_return`	Where people need time back	Shows pacing pressure without profiling
`feedback_quick`	User-controlled “clear / unsure” input	Explicit consent and agency

A simple event schema you can ship fast

Store only what you need to redesign. Everything else is optional.

{
  "event": "error_shown",
  "flow_id": "onboarding-v3",
  "step_id": "verify_email",
  "timestamp": "2026-01-14T12:34:56Z",
  "session_id": "ephemeral-uuid",
  "attempt": 2,
  "meta": {
    "error_code": "EMAIL_TIMEOUT"
  }
}

Important: Keep session_id short-lived. Avoid collecting typed input, free-text logs, clipboard content, photos, or “emotion scores”.

Consentful feedback that does not annoy people

Ask after a natural completion point, not mid-task.
Use one click options like “Clear” and “Unsure”.
Make the prompt easy to dismiss without penalty.
Explain why you are asking in one sentence.

Operational guardrails (these prevent drift)

Retention: keep quality telemetry short, for example 14 to 30 days.
Sampling: measure enough to learn, not enough to profile.
Access: product and design teams only, not broad internal sharing.
Purpose: redesign for calm, not behavioural targeting.

Where to go next

For a ready-to-use mapping from signal to meaning to response, open Signals. For design checks that reduce pressure before measurement is needed, open the Toolkit.

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