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Designing ideas

Changing the face of human interaction Axel Meyer with his revolutionary N 97

Three hours into media interactions and presentations and this livewire Latin American is ready to dive right into his next interview. After all, it isn’t every day that a behind-the-scenes designer gets to express his love for his pet project, the much-talked-about Nokia N97 in this case.

Axel Meyer, currently the head of design at Nokia, has worked on every N Series product released by the Finnish global communications giant. Meyer says he can’t keep his hands off his creation.

Being part of creating an object or device that has changed the face of human interactions, he says is not just about the product. “In many ways, we really are the voice of society. I believe what marketers were to the 21st century, designers are to the present — revolutionising the way we see the world, not as markets but as people.”

He throws his hands up in the air with excitement when asked about his eureka moments with his latest gadget. “So many! But the best one was when we hit upon that perfect design, one that doesn’t flip or slide open horizontally, but slides out at the perfect angle.”

Stumbling upon this “perfect interface” and enabling people to personalise or modify their home screen, he says, were the high points.

Another significant addition is ‘gesture control’, which Meyer claims will be the DNA of mobile phones in the future. “For years my grand mom has had to bang furiously at the snooze button. Gesture control incorporates something natural like turning the phone over to snooze or even cut calls,” he says .

It isn’t surprising that the designer is all dewy-eyed about his creation. But Nokia users have for some time been complaining about slow processors and software issues.

“All processors have been optimised, and the feedback we’ve got from all quarters was great and proves we’ve done good,” he insists. Nokia, despite being the global market leader, faces stiff competition in the smart-phone segment from Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phone. So, what does Meyer’s “baby” offer that others don’t? “No one has what we have,” he replies.

“From web widgets to personalised Internet, we offer it all. For instance, you can film DVD quality and watch on a 16:9 screen. I think that’s important because it’s beautiful, and allows you to do more — make your story, edit and upload it. These subtle and natural innovations, in the long term, change the way things we look at things,” he says. Besides being the first touch screen phone in this series, it offers a QWERTY key-board (designed for speed typing), not to mention 32 GB memory, expandable to 48 GB (almost double of what most phones offer).

The challenge, he says , is in understanding what people need from a certain gadget.

“We try to understand what the needs of people are, for instance, about the media they use everyday, we get feedback and create things for them. Understanding the reaction helps us know what will work.”

The team is known to have visited several cities in India and conducted in-depth market studies in metros and tier-II cities to understand the Indian user’s psyche. “Every person uses the phone differently, and studying these patterns helps us come up with something completely new all the time.”

Ask him about favourite application on the gadget and pat comes the reply — Face book. “I don’t have too many friends, but I like to keep in touch. That I can see them on my screen, connect to FB in a second and always be clued in is amazing to me.”

Connecting people — to borrow a phrase from his employer — is important, he says. “Maybe in a couple of years people won’t have to go to a shoe box to view their pictures and that too is a revolution in itself. To me that’s amazing, even magical and I’m happy I’m part of it.”

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