How BlackBerry Reinvented the Smartphone « Sharp – Canada's Magazine for Men

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May 2013

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How BlackBerry Reinvented the Smartphone

<b><i>Before we begin, Todd, why don't you tell us a bit about yourself?</b></i>
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I'm heading up the design team at BlackBerry, so working with a team that's multi-discipline - we have industrial design and user experience within design, so really we're responsible for the look and feel of BlackBerry products.
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<b><i>Is it important to have both those aspects of design working closely together?</b></i><br></br>
Well, for us it's unique in the sense that hardware and software need to work together to create a solution. As a company we have this really unique set of skills and knowledge and experience in putting together and taking care of all the details to create a solution for customers, to hopefully meet or exceed their expectations.<br></br>
The software developers, we also work really closely with them. The engineering solution is always best when you have designers and engineers working hand in hand, building on each other's ideas or even just challenging each other to come up with the absolute best solution. It's a very competitive industry that we work in and the bar is set very high, but also it's a lot of fun to create things.

<b><i>It seems BlackBerry's design philosophy has always been about simplicity and elegance, would you agree with that?</b></i><br></br>
With the Z10, simple and elegant were very much themes that we were after. BlackBerry design is based on utility, it's very purposeful in its design. Sometimes you'll hear the phrase "it's a tool, not a toy." It's very direct, everything is there for a reason. Whether it's the material, the shape, etc. We do put an emphasis on putting the right curves in the right places to bring some elements of comfort or ergonomics to the design. And then we spend a lot of time obsessing over the details, making sure that everything is really precise and performs very well. Like the side key details are almost watch-like on the new series, the Q10 and the Z10.

<b><i>A lot of design is worrying about really specific details that consumers might not even notice. How critical are those decisions?</b></i><br></br>They all add up, all of those details. Sometimes we talk about the millions of decisions that need to be made to make a BlackBerry. In design there's a term we use called "Gestalt," which is where you're left with an impression, or you have a perception of a product. When you really break it down and you analyze, each one of those things contributes to the greater whole of a product. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.<br></br>
We've paid a lot of attention to the material applications in these designs. In the Z10 the soft-touch back and edge-to-edge glass provide really nice tone-on-tone contrast. We use a special coating that we call "Soft Touch." We've done a micro-texture on the back, you can see those dimples, that makes it really nice in-hand, adds a good solid feeling of grip, tactile interest, and confidence.
<br></br>With the Q10 we pushed even harder on the material choice. We made the frame out of stainless steel, as we've done on previous Bold products. There's always a bit of metal inside the device for structure. In this case we've put it on the outside so you actually get to touch and hold onto the frame that protects the rather large piece of glass. And then on the back we've engineered a special glass composite weave. We've got this black carbon look to it, but in fact it isn't carbon. We tried it in carbon, but we realized that the carbon molecules interfere with the radio, and that's not an option, so we worked with the engineering team and the supplier to engineer a black material, because we love the look of it, that had the right properties and didn't interfere with the radio. The last thing that we ended up doing was applying the soft touch finish to it as well, so it has that confidence, that silky smooth touch.
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We've announced white as well. I called it the Stormtrooper. Then we had the dev alpha device, which was the Darth Vader.

<b><i>Earlier you mentioned the "tools not toys" idea. BlackBerry has always been associated more with businessmen and less with the casual user. Was that something that you tried to maintain with these new devices or shy away from?</b></i><br></br>
Our origins, really the ethos of the company, is the professional. There's an image of wall street. The early adopters were using the BlackBerry as a tool for communication. So that heritage we've definitely built on. What's interesting is that today, normal consumers want this level of performance, they want robust solutions, so we wanted to make sure that all of that utility and functionality is respected. But also, even if you work for a company, you're still a consumer. If the device or the tool lands on your desk, what's important is if the idea balanced. I think that with the BlackBerry 10, the user experience doesn't feel like work. It brings to the experience something we call discoverability, so users can, through play and trial and error, learn new things about the device and learn to become more efficient or communicate in different ways, be it through photography, imagery, etc., or just really getting into a new application like BBM to stay in touch with friends and family.<br></br>
<b><i>That's an interesting idea, discoverability.</b></i><br></br>
Yeah, we realized that with BB10 we had the computing power, the graphic processing power, the display is brilliant, so you'll notice the look and feel of the UI utilizes a lot of elements of transparency and layers, very similar to the way Photoshop works. You can slide layers over or away to get at your information really quickly. A lot of this can be done with just your thumb, which is really cool. That helps people keep moving, because that's a scenario we always think about: the BlackBerry customer on the go needs to get stuff done, and sometimes you need to do that with one hand, whether your other hand is busy with a suitcase or a coffee, whatever the scenario.

<b><i>And the phone is almost entirely gesture-based.</b></i><br></br>I think that's what's remarkable about it, what's not there. In this case, there's no home button. This is a new paradigm of interaction, the way-finding of the device is that you don't always have to go home before you go somewhere else. When you look at scenario-based design or user-centric design, often to get something done you're triangulating between 'I have to check my calendar, I'm on a phone call, I need to reference a contact or go on the web for something,' so you don't want to be going in and out of these things awkwardly. Sometimes you need to flow between them, and that was the inspiration: how do you flow, how do we solve the problem of communication, of entertainment, as well as applications, how do we combine those in a simple and elegant way?<br></br>
<b><i>And I imagine few buttons is a challenge from a design perspective, you don't have that escape hatch.</b></i><br></br>Yeah. It's a challenge, but also an inspiration. We realized you don't need that button, and it just made it so fast and so unique, it felt like the future. That's part of the intuitive side of design - let's dare to try that, let's see if we can make this work and not just be stuck adopting a model. We took our own path, we didn't go with the other platforms' solution, we developed our own platform.

<b><i>One thing I found interesting is the Q10. So many companies are abandoning physical keyboards entirely, so what made you decide to create a keyboard version?</b></i><br></br>
We still have a very large install base, about 80 million people, that absolutely love their keyboard. We have the best-in-class keyboard, we're in a league of our own when it comes to that classic form factor. We wanted to have a solution for both types of customers, to have the physical keyboard, which allows you to type blindly - a lot of people have the muscle memory to type without thought. So we have the classic QWERTY, the Q10. You'll see though that visually it relates to the Z10, which has a virtual keyboard. Once we started designing the virtual keyboard, it was our goal to fix all of those pain points about typing on glass, so we made the keys a little bit wider, we've incorporated a lot of intelligence in terms of software, where the keyboard understands where you're actually hitting the touchscreen and where you're meant to hit the touchscreen. We use something called Heatmapping for targets.<br></br>
So there's the shape of the keys, there's the actual force, the resulting sound has a nice timbre to it. The font that we chose is called Slate. It was done by a Canadian type designer, Rod McDonald, that wanted to do a very modern font that was very functional. It actually has a lot of qualities for visually-impaired readers, really it's about legibility and clarity. So we use it on the keyboard as well as the user interface. It's very comprehensive.
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But above that, it's not just about typing, it's really about composing, about writing, about communicating, and there's software in there that is predictive, it's adaptive, it knows how you've written and composed things in the past and it actually references those and suggests what the next possible word is, so you can quite literally start to flow through either typing with two fingers, which is a very recognizable BlackBerry way, or just flick words onto the page with one thumb as well.<br></br>
<b><i>Spooky.</b></i><br></br>
Yeah, it's a little bit surprising at first, but at the same time you realize, wow, this is very helpful. So you kind of go with it. But it's interesting, because innovation is like that. Words like that make us smile as designers.

<b><i>You guys made a pretty strong effort in the development to listen to and incorporate feedback from actual customers.</b></i><br></br>
Yeah, absolutely. We engage a lot of users and we prototype and build and test things a lot, either in the lab or in the field. We also do a lot of observational work. When I travel I'm always watching how people use their devices, and as a designer you're always looking for those problems that need solving. So absolutely, yeah, involving end users as well as really listening to the carriers, they're the other customers that sell our devices, and they bring a lot to the table as well.<br></br>
<b><i>You've mentioned specific problem areas, can you remember any in particular that you wanted to solve?</b></i><br></br>
As I referenced before, sometimes, if you're in the back of a cab, you can be hammering away with two thumbs, while in other cases you have to do things with one thumb. We wanted to be able to do that multitasking with one hand or one thumb, so that's a really good example. I think another nice detail, getting back to some of the hardware elements, about the keys is how precise the keys are shaped and sculpted. What's neat about the design is that when you're holding the Z10 in your hand your thumb naturally falls on the key. We're very thumb-centric in our design approach. You can feel very precisely the shape of that key, and theres a little bump in the middle, so I know that's my mute key or my play/pause key. I don't even have to be looking at my device to change my playlist or soundtrack, or, if I'm on a conference call, I can simply go on mute and talk to the cab driver. It's that attention to detail: how do you turn an awkward moment into an opportunity?

<b><i>Can you tell me about designing the screen, specifically?</b></i><br></br>
There are larger screens, there are smaller screens. We felt this was just right, for a few reasons. One: the keyboard is almost the same width as the Q10. That width really affords the two thumb typing. It makes the target sizes large enough. You take that width and you calculate a hi-definition ratio, approximately 16:9. That gives you roughly the size of this device. So it still fits nicely in the hand. We managed to make it thin enough so that it fits nicely in your pocket and shaped it enough so that it fits nicely against your face.<br></br>
The glass being edge to edge really minimizes the frame and speaks to how you interact with these gestures, something we call Bezel Gestures, where you can swipe in from the side. If you start a gesture offscreen, you can actually interact with this thing edge to edge. Starting at the bottom is really your home gesture, or from the top to get into settings, etc.

<b><i>Do you have an aspect of the design that you're particularly proud of?</b></i><br></br>
I think what's really attractive about the Z10 is that the industrial design is really understated, very minimalist. We've spent a lot of time and effort reducing the design to its essential. Every detail we've tried to minimize, to make it essential to the point where you shouldn't add anything to it and you couldn't take anything else away. So that's what we're proud of: it's simple and elegant. It's a lot of work to reduce something to its essence, I think the team's done a great job.<br></br>
Beyond the design and innovation I'm most proud of the teamwork - industrial design and user experience design collaborating with engineering and product management to make BlackBerry 10 special.

<b><i>It's no secret there was a lot of pressure on the development of this device and the company itself. Did you feel that?</b></i><br></br>
Sure. At times, you think about it. But at the same time, when you're so focused on the work you're driven by the challenge of how to make things better. We tried not to be distracted by all of the pressures or all of the external forces, because we really believed in what we were doing. That's really what drove us: to make something really cool as well as to design a tool that we wanted to use. We're the most scrutinizing customer. BlackBerry uses the products that we make, the whole company runs on BlackBerry. Design is work, but it's also a lot of fun. You feel like a kid sometimes because you're making models and creating new things, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.<br></br>
<b><i>That seems like the case in a lot of innovations, but in technology especially: the best advancements come from people trying to scratch their own itch.</b></i><br></br>
That's really important: design is fundamentally about problem solving. If you spend a lot of time defining and understanding the problem, then the designs start to become more obvious. Otherwise you fall into the trappings of just styling something. Making something different is actually pretty easy, changing the shape of it, changing the colour, etc. Making it better, that's really difficult. But that's what's really important.

<b><i>So what's the response to the 10 been like so far?</b></i><br></br>
It's been great, the response has been great. It's exciting. We want to make sure that we're pleasing the people that love us, but also it's rewarding for the people that left BlackBerry and now have a great reason to come back. Those are always great stories to hear.

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