The main purpose for designing this phone was not for the actual physical design of the hardware. It was created in order to give our Interaction & Graphic Designers a phone that we could use to showcase our Interaction Design work to potential clients without having to use someone else’s design.

We wanted to create a fairly simple and clean look that would not distract from the actual work that we would be presenting on screen. There are several traditional hard buttons that were incorporated into the design so that the user has the ability to control certain things on screen.

Hope this helps clarify the original intent of the design.

This was a competition by our industrial designers. It was not analyzed by myself or the human factors team, and the UI was never developed. As a company, we voted on several designs.

The two unmarked buttons serve as softkeys, which are traditionally used in mobile phone software. The idea here, I believe, is that the phone does not have to be a touch screen. I’ll ask the designers to comment further.

I would like to hear why they chose an iPhone clone design with two unmarked butons and two completely similar buttons as the hardware interface.

More informative posts please!