Nokia Design Day 2009
Published by Rafe Blandford at 15:13 BST, May 28th 2009 under Events in General, S60 3rd Edition, S60 5th Edition|| 3 Comments / Post New Comment
Photos from Nokia Design Day 2009. The event, held at Nokia's London design studio offers the 'inside story' on some of Nokia's design projects. This year the topics included iconography (a global design language), gestures (future interaction methods), homescreens (empowering users through personalisation), and the Nokia N97 (merging the physical and online world).
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The Gaming IconOn the bottom of the slide are some of the icons that were used previously (or concept ideas). The dice were associated with gambling, not gaming in general, and the o's x's were associated with board games. The joypad was the best universal icon. -
The Music IconIt is a musical note, which is near universal, with a hint of a CD underneath. The CD had different meaning in different markets. In Finland it was about buying music, whereas in China it had more of a sharing element. In India cassettes, rather than CD still had some importance. It's a good example of the thought annd focus group testing that goes into the icons. -
Nokia's Global Icon SetThis is the icon set which is being used through out Nokia's product portfolio. You'll see them on the phones and the online services. The first phone to get the complete set, at launch, was the Nokia 5800. -
Homescreen researchExample of homescreen produced during one user testing session. The homescreen are made up of cut out pieces of paper. The aim is for Nokia to understand how and why people want to customise their homescreen. -
Homescreen on productsAs seen on the E71, 5800 and N97. Nokia has done more than 2 years of research and it is still continuing. -
Some example gestures in sketch formGestures are limited at the moment (top for clock, flip to silence), but could play a much bigger role in the future. -
Testing gestures with plastic blocksPlastic blocks are used so than testers focus on the gestures and the thinking behind them. -
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Testing gestures in the labAfter establishing some design principals Nokia then look to design some prototypes for testing specific gestures. -
Bank magentic N97 -
Customsing magents -
20,000,000 Nseries uploads to Flickr -
Axel Meyer on the N97There was a presentation by Axel Meyer on the N97. I'm not sure I can accurately summarise this into a few sentences...so watch the site for extended coverage. Essentially though it was that the N97 helps marry the real and digital worlds into a single contextual hyper-layer. -
N97 keyboardWhen I first saw the N97 6 months ago the keyboard had me concerned - the keys were spongy. However they've been greatly improved - they feel very nice, although I do still think the space bar placement is a bit strange. In general the N97 has come on leaps and bounds. I'd particularly highlight the sensitivity of the screen and haptic feedback, the improved keyboard, the improved speed of the software and (not suprisingly0 massively improved stability. -
N97 hinge with descriptive textI rather like this touch... its hidden when the device is closed, but there's a subtle reminder of the power inside when you open up the keyboard... -
N97 drawing applicationHere's an N97 drawing application that maybe included on the phone (or maybe an Ovi Store download). It was basic, but would be ideal for making very quick notes, especially if you set is as an icon on the homescreen. -
N97 boldly goingThe video performance, in terms of fine control, has been greatly improved. It was possibly to drag the time-line-status bar back and forth to move back and through the current video very quickly. -
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Ovi Store on N97 -
Ovi Store running on the N97The N97 was running very quickly on the N97 - certainly more impressive than on launch day. Since WRT inherits web's capabilities it has kinetic scrolling - this make it a lot easier to look through the content lists quickly... It still has the issue of 'hard to find categories' though. -
Lots of widgets to choose from -
My N97 is bigger than yours...As well as the magnetic clipboards there was a giant (well three feet across) N97 which could be customised. In this vase the widgets were the 'right' size, so it was possible to mock up real N97 homescreen arrangements. -
N97 magentic widgetsFrom news to music and football scores. One finding of the homescreen research is that people want context aware widgets: 'I want the football scores to be as big as possible while the game is on' or 'I want the tube widget bigger when I'm in London'. Something to watch out for in the future perhaps? -
WeatherWeather widgets and information are always a popular choice. The N97 includes one which changes based on your current location. -
Build your own homescreen - the resultThe homescreen customised with magnetic icons and widgets. Nokia have used similar tools, in testing sessions, to explore the ways in which users customise homescreens. They found that there is an enormous variety. All kinds of reasons (e.g. I don't want to cover my daughter's face [wallpaper] with email). I want a clear screen (this one is the reason the N97's homescreen can be wiped clean).
We'll have more coverage from the Nokia Design Day on the site next week.
You can also find the photos here on Flickr.
Gallery Discussion
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Comment: There probably won’t be too many phones released this year that will rival the Nokia N97. The buzz around this cutting edge Smartphone has been building for months, making it one of the most hotly anticipated handsets in quite some time. At Mobile Phones Direct we have the edge on most competitors and will be shipping out the N97 mid-June to our Nokia Retail customers direct from our Nokia Retail Stores. So if you don’t want to wait around for yours to arrive, pre-order today with (removed span URL)
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Comment: Nokia getting alot under pressure nowdays as they seem be trailing alot to the High class mobiles,an seen more bothered about it middle class mobiles,the N97 might boost them abit,but the others are releasing more 8mega-pixel camera mobiles than them,an we so sign of any challenge coming from Nokia,but why? are we not seeing any movement at Nokia showing they still deserve to be the number 1 in the mobile market
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Comment: if they dont release something better than the N97 to compete or atleast a full touch handset they will lose market share as they have been doing, because ppl that are due for upgrades will go with the new iphone or scores of other competitors, e.g. the omnia HD. It will into N97 but its better than losing market share disappointing scores of customers will weak hardware, no 3d hw, and a resistive screen.