[CeBIT] Getting it Right, Inside and Out

Handset makers at CeBIT presented mobiles which specialized in many areas. TV, cameras, texting and music, all were present in numbers. Another area of phone specialization targeted specific age demographics. In Canada we’ve already seen a number of phone models designed for kids, like the FireFly. But what about the fastest growing segment of the population? What about phones for the elderly? How about a phone for my Grandma?

The Austrian company Emporia thinks they’ve found my answer. Their over-sized Life phone offers friendly buttons (read you can see them on Google Earth), a monochrome screen and clear text, supports calling, texting and little more. My Grandma would probably be right at home with the phone. The only problem I can see with it is that my Nokia from 1999 does the exact same things. And in the exact same way. And has Snake. It honestly might as well be the same phone in a different case. I’m willing to bet my Grandma would just as happy using it as Emporia’s latest creation.

What has happened with cellphones between now and 1999 that’s confused and frustrated so many people?

Feature overload. Telecommunications technology has created widgets faster than software engineers could think of ways to seamlessly integrate them into the overall design. Emporia’s solution? Turn back the clock to 1999 and erase all the progress of the last eight years. Like in all design, Emporia was faced with two choices when constructing its handsets: the easy way or the right way. By choosing to design a product that blindly follows pre-conceived notions of what the elderly want and need they’ve created a solid product that will sell well and be mostly forgotten by next year.

What about designing a product for the elderly the right way? My Grandma loves getting pictures of our family but rarely checks her email (it’s too complicated). What if I could send a picture directly to her cellphone? Impossible with Emporia’s phone. Instead of wooing buyers by introducing them to the benefits of new technologies Emporia has chosen to shield them by denying their existence.

Designing the easy way makes phones for the elderly dumb and phones for women pink. Specialization for age demographics doesn’t end on the surface, at the outer model design. Doing things right for specific people takes specific software that takes into account their individual needs and prioritizes them over other less pressing features but not at the cost of removing the features entirely. Software that is as intuitive as it is deep and rewarding will win users over in the end.

-jb