I’m also digging the rams one. The brand you created and the UI you design feels human and easy to approach. I think the phone’s design should reflect that, the rams design looked like the most honest and un-techy. There’s also something with the clipped bottom of the dogear that makes it appealing.
But I think the materials dictate the feel as well. There’s something nice in the raw aluminium. Thinking of it, it would look really cool if the top was made of tempered glass instead of the black thing you have there. That way you could see some of the aluminium through it next to the screen and you would also have the nice feel with the kind of diffraction effect through it.
I’ve loved looking through this project and seeing the development - great stuff.
A few comments on the recent post:
I like the idea of the knocked off corners on your ‘casket’ design. Great for larger screen devices - I struggle to reach the top corners of some of the larger screen devices when using one hand, which can be really annoying. The other way you could combat this is through making the UI accessible in the lower half of the screen for key ‘one-handed-use’ features. Out of interest, what display sizes are you considering? The trend seems to be for larger and larger displays, but is that what people actually want (especially as I guess this will be the one element of the product that wont be user swapable)?
I am not a personal fan of a kick-stand. Do people want a non-essential mechanical feature that may break and adds thickness?
The link of the volume control to the speaker is great, though I am thinking that this may be annoying (or pretty near impossible) to adjust when you are making a call (something that I am always doing).
Materials. Why cover the aluminium with an elastomer? If you want the visual effect of metal but a rubberised texture you can do that cheaply with IML but you shirk on quality and also the tactile cool feel which helps to tell the consumer that the metal is REAL. There is a reason that everyone loves the macbook pros - it’s not because they look like metal but because they ARE aluminium, and they flaunt it. That said, I think a tactile approach is right for the story that you have created behind Modai, and I think that the quilted back idea is going in the right direction… but not sure it is for the consumer you set out at the beginning of your project. Non-metals are also easier on your antennas too… unless you are doing an iPhone 4 approach… Maybe now is the time to go and and persuade a phone shop to let you get your hands on the latest product in the price-point you are aiming at to see what they are doing material wise, and also what they’re not.
Good stuf though. Can’t wait to see the next developments!
Some quick shots of the development of the UI. Not much words now (if you’ve been following you should know what’s going on though), but will have a full writeup when I finish the first iteration.
UI (just the top portion)
Charging. Interaction with physical charger (top)
Really liking the simplicity of the first blue one, it relates to the little UI characters without being obvious.
Orange one: feels very average and unemotional
Watermelon: fun, poppy, while being hyper normal, this one works very well, but it will all be in the details and execution here.
Banana: simple tweak to the front view is nice. Asymmetrical bump might not be good for pocket and lefty/righty switching?
ModaiX: feels very Yyves Behar
4 Bumps: there is something here worth developing
Modai Skin: love the use of the UI character in the physical design, rest is too iPhone
Dog Ear and Panda Rams feel very 1980’s Sony.
I would further develop:
The blue one: most formy, maybe integrate character from Skin concept
Watermelon: most Bauhaus
4 Bumps: Most customizable with texture, color, and material
I think that would give you a nice variety to choose from
Weather:
When people check the weather in the morning:
They want to know the temperature so they know what to wear
They want to know what the weather will be like later
Modai tries to address both issues with a simple interface. Slider for weather at a specific time at the bottom, and Modai’s recommendation for wear today.
Notification bar/stream (Need a better name)
Also started development of the notification bar (better name in the works… have one? let me know!). You can scroll right to read the messages. Mail, texts, and Facebook notifs are all integrated in the same stream (notifstream? nah…).
Messages look too much like the weather widget right now… some competing visual hierarchy goin’ on… hopefully will have a better solution soon?
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some challenges I’m running into now are merging the UI and ID visual language together. Most of my ID concepts are very professional/sleek, but the UI/brand is fun and playful. I really like how the UI is going right now, so I’m going to push the ID toward that direction. The ones that work are Banana or Watermelon… oh and I guess the blue one, but I’m not liking the taper on that.
I’m digging the retro-aesthetic of the UI. Very different than what we see today in mobile.
But if I was doing the ID around that, it would look really different than the sharp-edge futuristic stuff you’ve been showing us.
Who is this Hunter guy anyway?
What would we expect to see pulled out of his pocket?
CG, a fan of the sartorialist I see? I use his images with client PDS sessions to help guide what the personality of the product should be. The images he captures are just great.
Hello,
Finally had a chance to go through the recent work.
I like the colours you’ve used on the UI, I think the soft pastels work well with the hard illustration. I love clouds too, bonus.
I was hoping you’d be developing the avatar quite a lot more than you have so far, he currently looks pretty much like your sketches which I’d assumed were more like placeholders.
He’s way too close to the REVIVE monsters too don’t you think?
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The shhhh! silencing/mouth idea is a cool one, maybe the sleep/lock interaction is intergrated with eyelids?
I love the tickle unlock interactions, very nice & probably my favourite thing so far.
Also, you could consider using audio/SFX as another method of expressing emotion within the device.
I really liked the revive monsters, so I took heavy inspiration from them. I did try to design other things but kept gravitating back (I have a page of sketches somewhere of different versions). In the end, though, the functionality of our avatars are a little different. In my defense, the form developed from this (really early) sketch:
Where the original purpose was just a battery/signal indicator.
Also this:
I would love to explore sound, but I don’t have time for that at the moment. There’s tons of things I would like to do, but because the project is due in a month, I can’t.
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cg: Yes, I’m planning on selecting the few concepts that spoke more to the aesthetic of the UI and refining that further. I guess there’s just something inside everyone that wants to design future sleek sexy stuff.
I’ve never gotten into the habit of doing lifestyle image boards… I should probably look into that.
There’s a big update coming up soon… I’m getting close with finalizing the UI.
I decided to try my hand at animating the UI for kicks. It actually turned out pretty good! Thanks, Keynote! You’re amazing.
Unfortunately, Vimeo and Youtube butchered the quality. I also forgot to scale the UI. Halfway through animating I realized this but it was too late to start over.
Hi, I am student starting out in Interaction design and was curious on your animation. I have figured out how to create a prototype interface in keynote, bu what do you use to simulate the finger actions? Also, which program do you to capture your the animations… ei to put onto youtube etc.
Whoa! Thanks for the front pager, Michael! Made my day.
Hopefully it’ll help me get some more feedback! (If anyone missed my presentation I just posted because of the page break, it’s here: Design Magazines)
Just a quick shot at what I’m sketching up right now. Detailing some camera button. Really liking the “pimple” hill on the bottom right.
Great work with some very nice ideas and execution! My only advice would be to try to clarify and simplify the overall concept. If it’s about ‘humanizing’, what does that really mean? I like the little character that charges up when cord is attached, or the speaker level changing by ‘opening/closing’ character’s mouth. It’s ‘cute’ and has personality… But are those really what strengthens your concept of ‘humanizing.’? How is shown in the industrial design/form/materials/details?
I’d try to dig deeper into who this is for…Maybe it’s targeted toward a certain type of consumer? Or certain types of consumer behavior? (ie sleeping with their phone on their bed, playing with phone antenna…etc)
A simple concept with a clear point-of-view can go a long way over another concept with too many ideas stuck together without a clear cohesive vision. When I was a student, I used to do projects like the latter; and realized that I don’t have to use up all those great little ideas on this project I’m working on now. It’ll come back to you later.
