Lookin` good

Keeping up with this change is placing new demands on manufacturers, who are increasingly focusing on the external design of devices, to keep them marketable.

FROM HARDWARE TO COMMODITY

David Drummond, country manager of Acer Africa, feels the PC has changed from hardware to commodity. Customers are becoming increasingly image-conscious, demanding products with no unnecessary clutter for intuitive and trouble-free use. But they also want their IT to look good.Acer`s latest notebook is a case in point. The Aspire Gemstone notebook features beautiful design with flowing curves and natural, gemstone colours.

Drummond says: "Acer`s design team worked with the BMW Group DesignworksUSA to develop the concept and shape new forms."

"Acer commissioned BMW Group DesignworksUSA to carry out an in-depth global market research project aimed at studying both user experience and insight, and understanding what private and professional customers actually look for in a notebook."

This meant seven months of intensive collaboration with the design team, nine months of design engineering development and the collaboration of over 100 fully dedicated designers and engineers.

INVESTING IN GOOD LOOKS

Nokia is another manufacturer placing growing emphasis on aesthetics. Rodrigo Castaneda, a senior designer at Nokia in the UK, says: "Our entire design process is influenced by the consumer and their behavior - how they want a mobile device to look, function and fit into their lifestyle."

Castaneda says: "We now have a team of more than 250 people, representing 25 different nationalities, working on design around the globe. This includes designers, psychologists, researchers, anthropologists and technology specialists. We also invest in partnerships and creative collaborations with the external design community, including many industry forums, leading academics and institutions and emerging design talent."

Castaneda says: "Nokia is constantly studying consumer behaviour, spotting trends and opportunities. When designing the N93 multimedia computer, we observed people in their homes and familiarised ourselves with their habits. The key observation was that people wanted to share the experiences and so, when we designed the handset, we designed it to stand on its own for people to view the images they had captured."

INSPIRED BY NATURE

While today`s PCs and handsets boast advanced functionality, designers are looking to the timeless shapes and colours of nature for their inspiration. At recent new product launches by Acer and Nokia, sleek, natural curves and colours were cited as key design elements.

Nature was the inspiration for the Acer Aspire Gemstone notebook design in particular. Acer explains: "The Gemstone is shaped by nature that transforms `raw` materials into a valuable object; gemstones are beauty revealed." The new Aspire Gemstone notebooks feature high-tech, dark and glimmering exterior and the pearl-grey interior with smooth, rounded and natural shapes."

Describing industrial design as "the essential ingredient to PC companies` competitiveness", Acer says: "The consumer market is an instinctive world that puts style, look and feel at the same level as functionality and features." Another important consideration is how solid and well made the product is, Castaneda adds. It must live up to the brand promise, and it must be durable.

TREND CYCLES

Chris Bradnum, head of the Department of Industrial Design at the University of Johannesburg, says products follow a cyclic system, as with fashion, so what may have been in vogue ten years ago, could reappear today. The difference now is that cad and tooling capabilities of manufacturers have improved significantly, allowing designers the scope to develop the most complex organic forms and still have them produced.

Bradnum says: "By the end of the 1990s and early 2000s there was a move away from this possibly overly stylistic organic approach where the form became the entire object. The leading proponent of this trend was Apple. The development of very well proportioned, but simple form in Apple computers in the early part of this century broke away from some of the rather gaudy efforts that became the extreme of the organic phase preceding this."

"Now we find ourselves at the end of this clean simple form cycle and are moving to the next phase, which will again have organic features. This can be seen through a softening of corners on some of the latest electronic products. The overall proportion and larger radii are iPodish, but edge radii and across surfaces are also softening up."

STATUS BRANDS

Bradnum points out that there is more to making a device attractive to consumers than its function and form. Status is another big sales driver.

He points out that men are more likely to put their cellphones or PDAs on the table at meeting than in their pocket. This, he says, gives them a sense of electronic status.

In line with this, the Apple iPod, which rapidly achieved iconic status, is worn very visibly to maximise the status of the owner.

Status symbols are so important, he notes, that they may override style considerations for some consumers. For example, while early Bluetooth headsets may have been unattractive or uncomfortable, they had a dedicated following of consumers who persisted in wearing them.

DRIVING CHANGE

One factor boosting design is the shift from desktops to notebooks and other mobile devices - consumers carrying technology everywhere they go are more likely to want that technology to be stylish. Another change driver is revolutionary new ideas from design leaders. Bradnum says there are arguably three leaders in product design in the electronics market: Apple, Nokia and Sony. The rest essentially follow the forms these companies produce. Most major manufacturers are showing renewed commitment to design. Intel is so committed to revolutionising technology design that it sponsors the Intel Core Processor Challenge - a contest with $1 million in prize money awarded for the best new designs for high-performance machines.

Delia Griggs, country marketing manager for Intel Corporation South Africa, says a key computing trend is that products are getting smaller.

She says: "One of the four vectors of mobility that Intel identified at the time that we launched Centrino mobile technology four years ago, was form factor. Along with performance, wireless computing ability and battery life, we believed that form factor would play a major role in the notebook space. And this has very much proven to be the case."

"With each new generation of Centrino that Intel creates, we have seen the physical size of the platform (being processor, chipset and wireless component) decrease. This, in turn, allows notebook manufacturers to decrease the size of the actual notebook and we see these sleek, sexy designer notebooks now becoming the order of the day, especially for consumers."

LOUNGE COMPUTING

Griggs says: "The same is true of devices for the digital home. Although consumers want a PC that offers server-like abilities in their living rooms to serve up digital content on demand, they are not prepared to have these huge, noisy, hot, beige boxes standing in their living room display units."

"The digital home space has seen the evolution of the small form factor PC, which now looks and operates very similarly to any other CE (consumer electronics) device like a DVD player or decoder. These look completely at home in the living room, and also operate quietly, efficiently and with a remote control."

Bradnum says as the PC migrates to the living room, it is likely to become a more conservative unit that has a large amount of focus on detail design and tactile aspects.

He says: "Materials that are likely to be used on the body are either leather, carbon fibre, wood or metals or a combination of these, with the plastics hidden from view as much as possible. The colours will be muted and sophisticated with great detailing and human interface points. This product will form the background rather than the foreground in the home." On the other hand, a younger generation might favour PC design that takes its cues from the latest car trends, he adds. "The product itself will be a sort of electronic sculpture which would look beautiful and stand out in most homes. I think the colours of this product would be a sophisticated dual colour set that works well together and is slightly muted. The forms will be organic with great human interface areas."

MAKE IT MY OWN

An Intel study found that 73% of US adult computer users want to buy technology products that reflect their personal style.

Intel`s Griggs says: "The focus at the moment is around personalisation and individuality. We saw the same trend with cellphones where people began to customise ring tones, screen displays and interchangeable covers. Now, notebook `skins` are becoming more and more popular. These are removable `stickers` that can be attached to the notebook lid."

Several notebook and handset manufacturers, recognising the value of consumer individuality and status needs, have partnered with fashion designers or sports teams to produce limited edition branded products.

"Gimmick or not, consumers love this type of individual design," Griggs says. "This shift in design inspiration around computers is moving them from the category of work tool to that of executive jewelry and we believe this trend will continue."

Griggs adds: "Even as recently as ten years ago, I would say that aesthetics was a relatively small part of purchase decision. This was predominantly because personal computing was still very young and people`s main concern was safety and reliability.

"Today, technology has progressed so much that reliability is almost a given. Performance is probably now the biggest influencer of purchase, but in all consumer focus groups that we have conducted, form factor always rates within the top three criteria."

Castaneda says: "Handset design is a major influencer in the purchase decision. The choice of a mobile phone is very personal and different designs are targeted at the different motivations from different consumers groups. However, this varies according to target markets as early adopters are a lot more swayed by features."