Here is the first of a serie of posts about a cell phone project I've been working on. The idea is to document the process leading to the definition of the object and its experience, and hopefully get some constructive comments about the ideas pushed here.
One of the current negative comments from cell phones users is the clutter of functions shipped with them. These functions are unnecessary to many users, but they have no choice but dealing with them daily. Even if it means that it will cost them more money, add confusion in the user interface. Good start to make a customer happy.
Some people want to take pictures, send 50 sms a day, surf the web or send emails with their phone, but some others have a cell because they want to place and receive calls while they're on the road, just as they would do with any basic land line phones.
In a MobileMonday Paris conference I attended last year, there was a very interesting presentation of the latest advances in mobile phone chips, describing all the features you could embed into them. I asked the guy to give me an idea of the room needed to get the GSM, dialing and memory capabilities in a chip. He couldn't find anything small enough around him to answer my question but his little finger's nail. Today's technology is able to bring you the basic cell phone functionalities in a Bic pen cap, aside of ergonomic issues. There is no technical obstacle preventing us to build a simple, compact and robust cell phone for a basic use. Sounded like a good design project to me.
One of the high tech devices I enjoyed the most because of its small size is a Phillips USB key that is also a digital camera. Sure enough, the image quality is crap (good crap though), but I had it in my pocket everyday for a year and a half without noticing it, and I could take loads of pictures when I felt like it. No preview, unusable viewfinder, but all I want now is a new battery so I can use it again because the original one has died.
Anyhow, 1+1=2, and a USB key phone made its way. The USB feature is resolving the charger issue (you actually don't need one), and provides a new functionality that will be described later.
The brief is simple : design a compact USB device enabling the user to have wireless vocal conversations through a cell phone network. Nothing more. It's tempting to add features, but no, let's stay very basic and simple, even if it's just for the sake of this exercise.