Taking the form of a DIY tutorial, the Canon web site shows how they prototype the forms of their cameras.
Link: Balsa Wood Mock-up Modeling Tutorial (canon.com)
An interesting partnership with Yamaha. Click the thumbnails across the bottom of the page to look around at the different concepts.
Link: AU Design Project (kddi.com, thanks Matt)
Smashing Magazine describes some future UI concepts, including several for mobile devices.
“Below we present 10 recent developments in the field of user experience design. Most techniques may seem very futuristic, but some of them are already reality. And in fact, they are extremely impressive. Keep in mind: they can become ubiquitous in the next years.”
Link: [...]
“Like any remote, the designers were adamant about keeping the remote’s button layout as simple as possible. But with the DVR’s numerous features, the designers needed to create lots of extra buttons. To keep things straight, each button needed to have a distinctive feel, giving the ability to control the remote without even looking at [...]
Nokia concept video demonstrating adaptive form factors. Also a nice example of lo-fi video concepting.
(for those on the RSS, click the link for the video)
Link: YouTube – Nokia 888 Design (youtube.com)
At last, the kind of touchscreen I’ve been waiting for – a full screen touch UI with haptic response and tactile finger targets. This is the kind of touchscreen device you could use with one hand. Look forward to seeing more developments in this direction.
Link: First Video of Moto ROKR E8’s 100% Buttonless Touch Interface [...]
I couldn’t resist sharing this little gem. MP3, 1.3 megapixel camera, and seven cigarettes.
Update: just found a review and video of the phone in action at Superlocal
Link: PCOnline (pconline.com.cn)
Nokia’s design director, Antti Kujala, talks about design and emerging markets.
“In India, there’s a lot of aspiration in a purchase. It’s about looks, style, and projecting the right image. [A phone is] not just a status symbol but about people trying to acquire things to move to the next level…It has to be the right [...]
Technology Review tells the story of Helio’s new Ocean handset.
“The Ocean’s designers also sought the easiest possible way to let users reach other people or search the Web. Typing a few letters will bring up your list of contacts: hitting P takes you to “Paul Smith,” “Joe Parker,” and so forth. Nothing novel there. But [...]
Adam Richardson writes about how Motorola’s Q marries great industrial design with less than great software.
“It’s a beautiful product, but one that is saddled with a clunky interface. I haven’t thought this well enough through yet to know if it’s a universal law, but it seems like experience design is like a chain, it’s only [...]
The simple phone meme rolls on…
“For the rest of us, the great news is that an obscure Austrian company has come to its senses and called a halt to miniaturisation and complex-isation…And it’s sold 50,000 of them in a couple of months. Emporia’s phone has no digital camera, no internet access and no instant messaging [...]
A design for texting with the device orientation inverted. This is just a patent application, and not a real product. It’s an interesting idea, though, because it doesn’t ask people to learn new input systems but rather just change the orientation of the device.
“Typing text messages in this manner is awkward, as the mobile is [...]
Design Sojourn talks about the advantages and disadvantages of non-mechanical buttons.
““Static” buttons on the other hand have issues with feedback. Nothing moves, so there is no action and thus no reaction. Therefore designers that use “static” buttons need to employ a host of other feedback elements, like beeping sounds or lights. This is a very [...]
Published by Gabriel White.