I'm having a great time nosing through Jan Chipchase's blog, not least because of his miscellaneous mentality (my wife's description for what passes for my thinking) and partly because, as a Nokia employee he has no hesitation in pointing to a competitor when they are doing great things, like Motorola.
I'd hoped to get my hands on a Motofone before leaving India, but it was not to be. To what extent its simple and innovative design elements tempt more design orientated and wealthier consumers?
Beware the link to Motophone, it goes to a flash site that talks a great game, actually a really great game, about design simplicity but sure as hell doesn't practise it.
The subject, however, is a doozy; a universally comprehensible phone, that does not neeed a manual, that is durable, robust, low powered and disassemblable/ repairable/ upgradeable.
The whole issue of universal iconography (I wish they had produced a text document rather than flash audio clips, or even a YouTube video) has driven interface designers nuts for a long time so if they have solved that they have done us all a great service
And IF they have solved it, then they have a chance of implementing the next great aim of all device manufacturers, the manual-free device. I have a special interest in that because of my interest in the role of IT in a Pandemic, or to put it in the terms of my presentation to the conference last year;
Part of that dynamic environment will be key decisions made by people who have taken over from the sick, the absent and the dead.
They will need to learn fast and the technology will have to get out of the way.
Anyone who is working on designing and deploying systems that don't need manuals gets my vote.
Then there is the screen which, on practically any device you can
think of, sucks. Mosty what it sucks is energy; which is why there has
been so much interest in the development of electronic paper (EPD),
but most of us have been locked into assumptions about traditional
"paper" uses, books, newspapers, posters, labels etc; what makes the
Motophone an outstanding conceptual breakthrough is their use of EPD
for the screen. Brilliant. If it isn't changing something, it uses no
power for the display, and changes the whole look and feel of the
device in the process.
Its fascinating to see this kind of thing coming from Motorola who have not been at the cutting edge (razrs notwithstanding) for quite a while. Now, if only they would get rid of the damned Flash website.
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