The Push for Innovation
T400s control design with microphone mute indicator illuminated
Over the last 17 years we have continued to evolve the method of controlling important functions such as speaker volume and mute. Historically, these controls have been delicate sliders, embedded in the keyboard as a Fn fucntion, domed shiny black buttons, domed matte silver buttons, and most recently a black segmented bar as found on the X300 series. I’m sure everyone has favorites from their stable of outdated ThinkPads.
With the proposed introduction of new ThinkPad platforms comes the opportunity to once again revisit these controls. This time things were a bit different. There was a desire within the team to further optimize the T400s for voice over IP use. VOIP, as it in known within the industry, continues to grow in popularity. I find myself on more and more late night conference calls using applications that transmit sound and video to a broad audience of participants. With this increased focus on VOIP came the requirement to add a mute microphone control. What telephone doesn’t have this feature anymore?
One of the design problems created by adding a mute microphone button was that now we had to deal with even more controls in a very constrained space. Increasing the overall size of the product to add a single button is just not done. Without a new idea we would end up with a row of 6 buttons, when you include the ThinkVantage button and the power button. The “Wurlitzer Syndrome” was starting to creep in. Sure organs sound cool, but not everyone can play them. We did a broad study of alternatives trying to squeeze in the 6th button, but none of them really were appealing to me. They all seemed to have spacing or graphic issues. Fortunately one morning while driving to work I happened to pay particular attention to the volume control on the steering wheel of my car. It was a nice simple rocker rather than two buttons. Why not do this for ThinkPad? Not only did it remove a button, but it made the graphic labelling simpler. A single speaker graphic symbol and a nice clear + and – sign. Thanks for the idea BMW.
Steering wheel volume controls on my car
Adding a mute control for microphone added a nice convenient feature, but could also add confusion. Can you imagine how bad it would be to push the mute speaker button when you thought you had muted the microphone. I’ve personally been on a few calls when someone thought they were on mute but weren’t. This can be very embarassing. A similar issue exists for cameras. We also have a means of linking mute microphone with camera if you like, but thats a different blog topic. The typical approach would be to rely on graphical symbols to label the controls, but that is not a guarantee for success. Symbols, unfortunately, are not always universally understood. We talked about using a set of multimedia symbols such as the one below, but the idea never really gained traction beyond the joke of the day .
Multimedia control graphical symbols?
We ultimately decided to use control location to our advantage by creating a very deliberate separation between the two mute buttons. The two mute buttons cleverly straddle the volume rocker to achieve that goal. This improves your ability to remember that one mute function is on the left and the other is on the right. Our belief was that this would not have been as clear if they were directly side by side. A similar confusion is often made with light switches that share a single swtitch plate. Each mute button also has a unique graphic and a convenient red LED centered within the button to aid in status communication. If the LED is illuminated, the function is muted.
Hopefully we have helped to minimize those embarassing moments and have made controlling basic functions easier.
David Hill
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July 8th, 2009 1:04 pm
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July 8th, 2009 1:06 pm
Looks good to me. When will the other models follow?
July 8th, 2009 1:19 pm
The arrangement looks good and I have no beef with the LED light on the mute buttons as it serves a purpose. However, I personally have no use for the other lights blinking to death on the bezel in front of me ( although I am grateful they are not blue LEDs.) I don’t care for disk activity, wi-fi activity, etc. I can usually ignore them but a few times I’ve had to resort to black electrical tape to cover them on my tablet as they are more obtrusive in slate mode. Again, personally, I’d much rather have them in some other location on the sides, if at all. I do acknowledge that some indication of whether the machine is in sleep/hibernate or going into or out of said state is useful — on the sides.
And don’t get me started on the red LED on the outside of the lid (in Apple’s apple-alit-fashion) I saw on a Thinkpad some weeks ago at a coffee shop … what’s the deal with that?
July 8th, 2009 1:52 pm
MarceloR,
Don’t underestimate the lights on the bevel. While I agree that disk and wi-fi activity aren’t important, for some reason my Caps lock and ‘plugged-in’ light are not working, and I’m definitely missing them!
July 8th, 2009 2:00 pm
Uhuh, more LEDs …
At least they’re not the freaking blinking kind! I have an issue with those. And another one with the battery and sleep moon LED. Why not a Power LED?
And please make all LEDs glow constantly instead of blinking. But maybe in three different colors? I’d love to have that harddrive LED doing this:
Off: Hard drive shutted down
Green: On, working fine
Yellow: Working fine, doing something – a little busy
Red: Way too busy, you’ll have to wait dear operator
Blinking red: Somethings wrong
I think that would be better than just blinking green all the time. And the battery LED could use the same colurs indicating the state of the battery. And a Power LED could use:
Off: Computer is off
Green: Computer is on
Yellow: Sleep
Red: Hibernate or what it’s called in English…
Blinking red: Computer is broken
Excuse me, got a little off topic here. I’ll blame the annoying blinking LEDs.
On topic I think the changes are all good. Just that on my computer I’m using a PCMCIA soundcard – frankly, onboard sound is crappy. And for that reason I’m not using those controls, since they don’t work. If you could solve that, I’d be grateful.
Another too long comment, thankyou to anyone who reads it!
July 8th, 2009 2:02 pm
The red LED is (IIRC) only found on the SL-series.
As for the lights, it is possible to control them through software.
July 8th, 2009 5:44 pm
I’m not sure why but I guessed the mute audio button would be on the right side of the volume buttons but when looking at the picture I saw it’s on the left side, then I realised it’s also on the left side on my X61.
Did it used to be on the right side on earlier thinkpads? Not sure about this one.
Also, I don’t like the idea of having a red LED in the center of the buttons, it has such a multimedia fancy shmancy look.
I prefer to have all status indicators next to each other and in the same color to have a better look.
If one cannot decide on the colour, then why not putting dual color LEDs in? red for those fancy shmancy users and green for real thinkpad customers who would buy a thinkpad because it’s a thinkpad and not because it’s just a laptop.
July 8th, 2009 6:19 pm
Marco, the mute audio button is on the left since it maps to the behavior of reducing volume with the rocker. Mute is the extreme of volume reduction. Red was chosen for the indicator since it is highly associated with stop. We first introduced that on the X300. Dual color LED’s are expensive and possibly makes more lights on all the time. Thanks for your feedback.
July 8th, 2009 6:20 pm
The key I most wish for is a Fn key on the right side of the keyboard. I realize there’s not much room over there, so…
Perhaps a more powerful and general Keyboard Customizer would help a lot of people out. I would personally change the browser nav buttons on the right into Fn and something else useful. Others would swap the left Ctrl and Fn.
It’d be great if the Keyboard Customizer had, for each physical key, a dropdown full of options. Or something like the Windows utility but with a picture of my Thinkpad’s specific keyboard.
July 8th, 2009 6:21 pm
@O8h7w:
What do you need a ‘Power LED’ for? Can’t you see that your computer is on, off, broken or ‘asleep’?
Though, I agree on annoyace of the ‘blinking’. I really hate the HD LED.
July 8th, 2009 6:33 pm
Just please, please, don’t do what other hardware vendors do and make you install stupid proprietary drivers to make the lights and buttons work.
July 8th, 2009 11:38 pm
Dear Mr. Hill,
The problem with Lenovo is the lack of constant design as an example the T & R series have different control buttons than the SL & X series my X301 control buttons look different than the ones on the X200! The T400 buttons and LED indicators look different than the ones on T400s one model has the stripes other model don’t!!! every time a new model comes something is different and the change isn’t always to the best! few months ago Lenovo changed the Legendary Keyboard and we all had a problem with the new keyboard as you may remember, My T61 keyboard is solid my T500 keyboard is so bad my X301 keyboard is not as bad as my T500 but it dose feel little mushy! I hope you understand what I’m trying to say! I was very happy with stripes and you took them away! Now it’s good to see them back they in some models!!! I love the legendary keyboard and you took it away! I love the classic ThinkPad black controls buttons and you took them away! Please!!! Don’t give me what you think is better for me just give me what I want! If it ain’t broke don’t fix it Lenovo!
July 9th, 2009 5:55 am
Khalifa, unfortunately technology roadmaps and development expense realities do not allow us to refresh the entire ThinkPad product line at once. That is why you see inconsistency across the line. As other platforms refresh they too will follow suit with the changes introduced on the T400s. The strong emergence of VOIP required the addition of a mute microphone button to improve usability.
July 9th, 2009 7:19 am
David,
Is that an E46 M3 you’ve got? The steering wheel tells me it’s a 3-series, and the grey-backed dials give it away as an M3.
I am a BMW and ThinkPad enthusiast just like you.. great minds do think alike.. I think they have a lot in common.. their products share similar qualities of being functional, purposeful, beautifully engineered.
My tip for future ThinkPads.. just like BMWs for decades have used amber for their interior backlighting, let ThinkLight keeps its tradition. Ditch the white/bluish LED. Amber is a lot warmer and easier on the eyes in a dimly lit environment.. and it looks a lot classier too!
Thanks for the blog, I’ve been reading it for years and I enjoyed it immensely.
July 9th, 2009 7:27 am
Lionel, You know your BMW’s. It’s a 2004 E46 M3, you can probably guess the color. We have tried several different colors for the ThinkLight, unfortunatly, they don’t work very well in terms of illuminating the keyboard. Glad you like the blog.
July 9th, 2009 9:00 am
“As other platforms refresh they too will follow suit with the changes introduced on the T400s.”
That’s pretty sad since it spells the death of the ThinkPad to me. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted.
July 9th, 2009 9:40 am
You could get rid of that stupid and useless Thinkvantage button if you need room. I deleted the dumb recovery partition on my x61t as soon as I got it. Sorry, 5gb is more valuable than the ability to restore to the factory condition, complete with crapware. I’ll take a nice clean OS install any time.
But maybe that’s just me. Maybe everyone else loves that stupid blue button.
July 9th, 2009 12:33 pm
I’m glad that ThinkPads are continuing to evolve, but retaining elements that make them unique and distinctive.
With that said, simplification and clarification is all for the best — I think PCs tend to have too many lights, keys, and buttons. However, having clearly labeled, dedicated controls VOIP makes a lot of sense (so many business are going that route). I also like the addition of LEDs on the keyboard — I think they are very useful.
One feature — tangentially related to this issue — that I would love to see ThinkPads adopt is backlit keyboard keys. The light over the screen is fine, but I find backlit keyboards (like on the MacBook Pro) incredibly helpful. With the addition of VOIP control LEDs and glowing power and caps lock indicators, I hope that is something that might be considered down the road.
July 9th, 2009 4:26 pm
Death to the ThinkVantage Button!, its the most useless thing on my R61, yet It commands a lot of real-state.
July 9th, 2009 10:03 pm
One of the mute buttons should have a different color LED as it will help both in the learning curve for location and for general location identification. Like port and starboard lights on a river; it may become an industry icon – universally identified. Possibly blue, a four letter word; similar to port; as a method of remembering left key location placement; and thus a shared industry mental path.
July 9th, 2009 11:36 pm
Dear David,
Thanks for the informative reply, I’m very pleased with the direction of T400’s if customers are pleased with the way it looks and feels let the T400’s be standard for upcoming Thinkpads i will give my brother my X301 and get my self a new T400s
July 10th, 2009 3:19 am
One thing that bogs me since my X61s is that you can’t be sure to mute the system when pressing the mute-button. Up to the T43p the mute button ALWAYS muted the system, no matter how often you pressed it. Beginning with the T60 series the mute button actually toggles between mute und the last volume setting which I never understood. When I press mute I want to be sure that the system is dead silent.
Has that issue been fixed?
July 10th, 2009 6:42 am
Floiran, pressing the mute speaker button suppresses all sounds. Pressing it again restores the sound at the previous volume setting selected prior to pressing mute. In the mute state the red LED in the center of the button is illuminated.
July 10th, 2009 8:17 am
The new touchpad looks great, I’ve been waiting for this improvement for a while. I have however always recognised the superior texture on thinkpad touchpads, to the degree that I can’t properly use others.st
two points though:
1) where have the lights gone? not that I need flashy lights per se, but the indicators below the screen I use on a daily basis.
2) it amazes me that Americans still put up with the unusable looking Enter key. isn’t it time that you released your countrymen from this vice? given the redesigned Delete and Escape keys, it would seem so: the Enter key is important enough to warrent a larger vertical striking area.
July 10th, 2009 9:45 am
Well, I am one of those who find ThinkVantage buttone very useful. By the way, it is not just for restoring system to the factory settings. It is, and this is only one of it’s functions – useful to boot in rescue and recovery environment to rescue files and restore the system from a backup (and for some more useful functions besides those). Couple of times that saved me much time and energy. So I am glad that there is such a thing on my Think Pad.
July 10th, 2009 11:39 am
Very very nice!!
July 10th, 2009 1:30 pm
I really like the look of that.
July 10th, 2009 6:39 pm
I like the new volume buttons and escape key, but not as thrilled with the new delete key. Perhaps I’m in the minority but the blinking lights are appreciated here as well. I configure the wireless light to blink with network activity. Please offer an alternative keyboard without the right Windows (menu) key. Did that thing even show up at all on your frequency analysis?
July 10th, 2009 6:41 pm
yes i agree, very nice!
July 12th, 2009 12:02 am
David,
Thanks for getting back with me on the idea of a user replaceable keyboard to make them like the new T400s. I did have two follow up questions. I am on the verge of buying a new T400, I have a bunch of 2.5mm drives and older T60 accessories, and the price point is the other determining factor. My two questions are, 1) Is there any chance that the current T400 would be inline to get the new T400s keyboard before the end of the year? 2) A lot has been said on blogs and reviews about the initial T400 keyboards that were sent out when the T400 first came out and that they were flimsy and “lightweight.” My question is, are the new T400 keyboards the same lightweight flimsy ones or have been replaced and more like the ones on the T60 line?
Thanks, love the blog
Doug
July 12th, 2009 10:46 am
David,
Nice work. But wait, there’s more! As the late and legendary broadcaster, Paul Harvey, famously said, “And Now, the Rest of the Story…”
http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/b.....504#M13504
With best wishes.
–BAM
July 23rd, 2009 9:44 pm
I knew the M3 would come in handy.
August 3rd, 2009 4:05 am
Why have mute buttons in/near the keyboard? Far better to place the microphone mute button near the microphone, and the speaker mute near a speaker (or both), and mark them “mute” or “X”. The TP is not as big as a BMW – you don’t need to reach dangerously to find the speaker or microphone.
It’s much better to make the meaning obvious by the position. Of course, the microphone should be made obvious, not a meaningless hole.
The same thing goes for the camera. The best way to turn off a camera is to actually turn it. Have your camera mounted so you can rotate it, towards the user, towards the scene opposite the user, or down so it sees nothing. I’ve seen such a thing on an HP laptop, I think.
Think how you can simplify, not add levels of indirection and instructions!
Also, think of when/how the LED should glow. x Video cameras have a red light when recording, the opposite of when you use red for “off”. Better to have a light for on, and green is the obvious choice, and if you think you need a light for “off”, then use red. Don’t use red for “off” when it means “on” with video cameras and recording studios.
My Treo 680 uses a bicolour LED for charge state, red for charging, green for charged.
These lights mimic the traffic lights in North America. Green for go, Red for stop.
Don’t use red lights when the meaning of the red is ambiguous.
tOM
August 18th, 2009 5:07 pm
The same moment I started reading this post, something came across my mind. Why not use a sligtly dotted textured plastic on the mic mute button itself (similar to the one on trackpoint) that would resemble the metal mesh that many microphones have? It would make mistakes impossible, since you would feel what you have pressed, even if you’ve made a mistake.
November 26th, 2009 2:57 pm
[...] Design Matters blog addresses technical topics in a digestible, entertaining way. For example, a deep dive into the new ThinkPad T400 keyboard design using video links and describing the emotion behind the creation. In another post, [...]