Design Matters

I apologize if this is old news for anyone, but I forgot to share the big news! A little while back, I posted about Engadget’s Tablet of the Year vote and recommended everyone vote for their favorite. (Not trying to persuade you or anything…)

Well, when the dust settled, a winner was clear: the Lenovo ThinkPad X60 Tablet! Just search this blog and you can see my thoughts on our pretty highly evolved design of the tablet. A lot of different teams within Lenovo put in a lot of hard work to see the tablet come out with such a high level of insight taken from real world needs in tablet computing. Congratulations to those teams, and of course to Lenovo!

David Hill

It isn’t every day that Lenovo has the opportunity to participate in something of such international importance as the design of the Olympic Torch for the 2008 Olympic Games. Accordingly, myself and the rest of the design team here in North Carolina wanted to share our extreme pride and happiness with Yao and his design team. Congratulations!

P.S. For more details on the Torch design, and to see Yao himself talk about “Clouds of Promise,” go to this press release page and click “View Video” on the right side.

David Hill

Editor’s note: This post is from Yao Ying Jia, Executive Director of the Lenovo Innovation Design Center in Beijing, China. Read his bio here!

34
388
9
4
1

What meaning can be found in a number? Different cultures assign different omens to numbers. When I hear the number 23, I think of Michael Jordan. 13 is an unlucky number in the west, while 4 is unlucky in the east. In China, 6 is an auspicious number and 8 indicates making a fortune.

Today, right now, the number 388 means a lot to me and my team.

Over the past year, I have rallied 34 of our best designers here in Beijing through several rounds of competition. Our hard work and best efforts survived several rounds of selection — from 388 to 9 to 4 and finally, to the number 1.

Our design has been selected as the final winner from 388 entries for the official torch of the 2008 Olympic Games. Thirty-four designers on my team, 1 out of 388 entries, narrowed down to 9, then 4, and finally, the one. It feels as if we’ve won the first gold medal of the Games.

View larger image here

I am relieved that the news is now public, it was hard to keep such exciting news within our team! Today it is official: our design, Clouds of Promise, is going to be carried around the world and to the top of Mount Everest, carrying the Olympic flame to China.

I look forward to discussing the influences that led to our design and to exchanging ideas with you. I believe that — just as water needs to flow to keep fresh — design also needs communication for nourishment.

Well, it is late here in Beijing and I must sleep, but I will be back soon.

And finally, to my team: I love all of you!

Yao Ying Jia

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

This post sparked some good comments from our readers here. Several people pointed out that the keys themselves are a bit redunant, with the Backspace/Shift-Backspace or Alt-Right/Left combinations which serve the same purpose. We even had a left-hander share how they mouse with their left hand and browse with the right! in the end, keeping them in the same old location won out in the poll.

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I found it very useful.

David Hill

The 2006 Engadget Awards: Vote for Tablet PC of the Year – Engadget

We are all very proud of the ThinkPad X60 Tablet here at Lenovo, I know I have bragged on it a few times. The X60 Tablet represents the hard work and determination of many different groups within the company, all pushing to make sure our next generation tablet came out spectacular.

The folks over at Engadget are having a vote for the best tablet PC of the year. Now I wouldn’t dream of telling you folks which model to vote for, but I think you know my choice – now let Engadget know yours!

David Hill

Not too long ago, my colleague Matt Kohut talked about the infamous Forward and Back browser keys. These of course offer convenient access to the Forward and Back functions in your browser, and also function similarly while browsing a folder in Windows. Their inclusion has been a topic of some debate, as some people love them and others hate them.

We first introduced these keys on the ThinkPad i Series, and spread them to the rest of the ThinkPad lineup at the time. This change was prompted by a study we did looking at adding internet centric features for desktops and notebooks. It tested very positively in user research sessions as a quick way to retrace your path through the internet.

Given their close proximity to the arrow keys, it is no surprise some people accidentally press the forward/back keys instead of an arrow. This is a particular pain if you’re entering text into a web browser, say for a blog or discussion forum. More often than not, your content is lost (depending on the browser) and you’re left cursing. If this issue befalls you too often, rest assured that there is a way to turn the keys off.

You’ll need to have the Lenovo utility “Keyboard Customizer” installed, either available through our website or using your System Update tool. Run this program and go to the “Key Sensitivity” tab. Towards the bottom, you will see the options for the Browser keys, including a checkbox to enable/disable them.

Above is an example of another implementation of the Forward & Back keys, shown on a desktop keyboard we offer. As you can tell, they are on the upper left hand side of the keyboard and out of the way of accidental pressing compared to the ThinkPad implementation. The interesting thing about this location is that you can keep your right hand on the mouse and use your left hand to navigate back/forward in your browser.

What if we offered something similar on our notebooks? If we placed a pair of back/forward keys towards the upper left of the keyboard, users could keep their right hand on the TrackPoint or mouse and easily navigate back/forward using their left hand.

Let me know what you think in the poll I have setup, at the bottom left corner of the blog.

David Hill

PC World – The 50 Best Tech Products of All Time

Amidst an interesting article on the 50 best technology products of all time, I came across an old friend: the ThinkPad 700C. I talked about it once a while back and if you’ll remember, its successor the 701C has the famous “butterfly” expanding keyboard. Thanks for the compliment PC World

The machine that started it all, however, was the 700C, which weighed less than 6 pounds, had a huge-for-its-time 10.4-inch color TFT display, and featured the first-ever pointing stick. Although the laptop is now owned by Chinese company Lenovo, ThinkPads like the R60 are still coveted status symbols in the business community.

David Hill