Dynamist Blog

"Unwittingly Creating a New Gesture"

Forbes Digital features an interview with Motorola design honchos Jim Wicks, the company's chief designerk and Peter Pfanner, head of North American design operations. They're most excited about results they don't exactly design:

Get them talking shop, however, and they don't talk about what a phone can do or how many famous people use it (former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was photographed using a RAZR phone), but rather how people react to it. What gets them excited is unwittingly creating a new gesture.

Pfanner fished into a pocket for his own RAZR phone to explain what he meant. With the phone closed, he demonstrated how easy it is to open and close with one hand--flick the top portion up with your thumb and then close it again with the thumb. There's something about the tactile sensation that makes this action something you want to do repeatedly, like a nervous habit.

"I see people opening and closing these phones all the time," Pfanner said. "Seeing people do that with their hands is pretty cool."

My new Motorola phone, alas, is a cheapy and not quite this exciting.

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