Motorola
When designing for a target demographic that is unknown, one of the best methods to better understand the end users while exploring the latest trends, fads, and movements is to get out there in an observational role. We went out into the communities to see what the social influencer's were and documented the experience with cameras and notepads. The result was a plethora of inspirational images which would drive our design exploration. It also allowed us to collaboratively synthesize the data by categorizing and identifying trends and user segments.
Working with another design firm, we created these theme boards which related to our target segments. These formed the baseline personas for whom we were designing the phones for. The benefit of personas is the ability for the designer to identify with a particular user, or more precisely, a group of similarly aspiring people.
We began with creating a color material and finish strategy which would streamline the industrial design process and couple design phase with target palette, decrease cycle time for color selection and research timeline, create a validated palette to ensure quality & performance, and use robust trend research to anticipate the market's future color preferences
From the lifestyle immersion and initial concept exploration, this slider phone was designed to reflect Motorola's vision for the youth market. This concept pushed several boundaries, by drawing inspiration from an active lifestyle, furniture trends, fashion patterns and graphics color palettes. Some of the key aspects considered during its development were:
- lifestyle branding
- trend analysis
- experience design
- durability
- materials and processes exploration
- bold styling
Additionally, an accessory story was developed to increase appeal and show how the product portfolio could be expanded beyond the phone itself.
The research and early exploration led to the mobile phones shown here. Their impact allowed Boost Mobile to improve their market penetration, appeal to their target consumers, and clearly led the prepaid mobile telephony space.