Design Matters

Today is officially Earth day. April 22nd marks the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. For me it’s also a chance to say good bye to some of the designs we have created over the years. Did we really design some of these relics?

Lenovo has set up in the parking lot a fleet of wire cages for people to deposit their old personal electronic devices in so they can be properly recycled. I think this is a great idea. The cages are rapidly filling with obsolete CRT’s, dot matrix printers, even a genuine simulated woodgrain television or two. Once the cages are full the contents are hauled off on skids to their final resting place. It’s hard to remember how bad those old clunker PC’s really looked until you get to see them one last time. Somehow they look even worse rendered in boring beige plastic.

David Hill

One of the key motivations behind starting this blog was to not only inform our audience about things, but also to seek input from you. Believe it or not, all of the polls I run on here are to actually see what YOU think of a certain topic and the feedback I get both in the poll and in the comments has a real impact on future products and decisions.

Today I offer a new query to you, something that I am inquiring about to help inform a decision coming up fairly soon for us in the Lenovo design world.

Keyboard labeling and function assignments are sensitive subjects for computers users, as we’ve seen in past discussions on this very blog. If there is any change from what is expected, users like yourself DO notice. However, we periodically debate the usefulness or placement of certain keyboard functions, like the Internet keys last discussed. One that is commonly debated amongst the team is the embedded number pad (see picture). We are interested to know, how often do you use the embedded number pad? Please vote in this newest poll, at the bottom left of the blog.
David Hill

What is it about ThinkPad that makes it special. Can you think of another high tech product that has not significantly changed the design since it’s introduction nearly 14 years ago? The famous rectangular black box notebook computer punctuated by the bright red TrackPoint is anything but simplistic. 

Most great art or design on the surface appears simple, but under closer examination is anything but. How many times have I overheard museum gallery visitors comment on how they could have made the famous Picasso Bull’s Head sculpture or a Matisse paper cut out, but did they? Originality, quality of execution, and the essence of a powerful idea are what sets these things apart.  The powerful idea behind ThinkPad design is the creation of a synergistic link between both form and function. ThinkPad is not about one or the other, it is about the combined power of both.