It’s been a big week for the mobile world, with Sony unveiling its innovative and beautifully designed new phone, the Xperia Z Ultra. With a 6.44 inch screen, the Ultra is pitched as the slimmest large-screened handset on the market, is waterproof, takes in tech from the Bravia TV range, and poses a serious challenge to Samsung’s dominance of the sector.
Gareth Beavis was there for the launch, and took the opportunity to quiz Tom Waldner, Sony’s head of creative product design, on user interfaces, product thinness and the unified design language of Sony’s devices. Here’s what he had to say…
- Also watch this video interview with Waldner by our stablemates T3
CB: Last year Sony introduced a new approach to design it calls Omnibalance’ ["creating balance and symmetry in all directions with rounded edges, and smooth reflective surfaces on all sides"]. It’s impressive it’s managed to have pervaded through so many devices; how easy was this to do?
TW: With design projects like this there’s generally an entropy, a natural state that everything heads towards. In this case it can be diversification, with many devices from many teams that have to focus on region or overall purpose for users.
There’s a human aspect of people wanting to be creative on their own terms, so it’s difficult to manage that and work towards a common goal, as it’s a natural human trait to move towards diversification [in design].
We have to make sure we explain the thinking and philosophy of the design in an inclusive way, if you don’t do that then people will reject the idea and things won’t turn out well.
We have to explain the philosophy of the design in an inclusive way
CB: You said that phones and tablets are getting so thin that things like the 3.5mm jack are now limiting the design. Can you explain that further?
TW: It’s true: we have reached a limit where connection ports are now driving some of the design, to a degree. Not all of it, but some. But I think that thinness is a physical embodiment of our innate desire to dematerialise technology.
We intuitively know when something is thinner, as it’s simply less in the way. Human beings are good at detecting efficiency; it wasn’t that long ago that if we wasted resources today, things like food and water, then we might die tomorrow.
Thinness is an embodiment of something that’s super efficient, and we like that
When people see wasted space and material on anything from food packaging to automobiles to a smartphone, we instinctively react and say ‘this is wrong’. Thinness is an embodiment of something that’s super efficient, and we like that. As humans we are always looking for these cues, making something feel less obtrusive.
CB: Isn’t it the case that if a device is too thin it removes the premium feel you expect when paying so much for a tablet or smartphone?
TW: It really depends on user context. When I give someone a Sony Xperia Tablet Z, it looks like it will weigh a tonne, but it doesn’t and you know that given the tasks you are going to be doing with it, holding it for extended periods of time, you like the lightness.
When I show you a smartphone, you build an image or impression of how much it will weigh; if I took the battery out and gave it to you, you’d weigh it in your hand and say ‘it’s too light’.
Why would someone say that lightness in a phone is bad, but lightness in a tablet is good?
And you would interpret that as poor quality… so why would someone say that lightness in a phone is bad, but lightness in a tablet is good? It’s the context you build in the mind and so is something we try to create; there are engineering conditions we have to pay attention to, but there’s a reason we’ve added the glass on the front and back (of the Z Ultra), but we don’t have that on the tablet. We try to dial in the weight to give the right impression.
CB: How do you intend to fix the problem of ports limiting design? You have to have a 3.5mm headphone jack, right?
TW: The obvious solution is to take the connections off. That’s a trade-off; if you take of the headphone jack then you’re tied into Bluetooth, and I don’t know whether there’s enough user confidence in that.
We’re looking at the problem and investigating what has to be done – perhaps we’ve reached the level of thinness that’s optimum. It’s not necessarily about being the thinnest, it’s about creating the best device possible that’s just right.
Standardisation is good for end user, but all of a sudden they’re barriers in design.
I don’t have the answer right now. Look at the phone [the Sony Xperia Z Ultra] and you see the jack is the same thickness as the phone, so what do you do next? You’ll have to figure it out yourself, but you can only [somehow] make it smaller or take the connector off. So much standardisation is good for end user, but all of a sudden they’re barriers in design.
CB: What excites you about the design of each new product?
TW: There’s a couple of levels: one is the end users and what they’ll be using it for. It’s amazing what’s happening, as smartphones are becoming extensions of our minds, allowing us to offload our brains from mundane tasks and allowing us to spend time with our families or similar… if you use them in the right way.
Of course any powerful tool [like a smartphone] can be misused. The human race is in a technological history, from day one when we harnessed fire, which is a technology; do we use it kill each other and burn our houses down, or do we use it to cook food? That’s the thing with these technologies, they can really make your life better if you just them in the right way.
The other side is the hardware/software element, how neither is slowing down. There’s this impression that smartphone communication technologies are reaching a plateau… we’re not. If you look at chipsets, and the chipmakers’ roadmaps, for video transmission, for wireless transmission rates, they’re getting faster and faster, so we’re nowhere near a plateau.
There’s this impression that smartphone communication technologies are reaching a plateau… we’re not
It’s so exciting as you’ll be able to do so much more with these products. Also miniaturisation is continuing, which will allow us to embed mobile communications into things around us, and when that starts happening the tech will become disembodied and more integrated into the world around us.
It’s already happening now, but we’re not recognising it unless we see it in a historical nature.
CB: How do you make sure hardware and software complement one another when designing a smartphone or tablet?
TW: The software side is even more complicated, as [Sony’s] user interface (UI) is used across many different devices: TV, PlayStation and the smartphone for instance, so it’s really a lot of work to get all this moving in the same direction.
We talk and work together with the UI team. I joke that “we have to be holding hands, with the UI people in the early days, but we don’t have to sleep with them”.
We have to be holding hands with the UI people, but we don’t have to sleep with them
As we move forward we’re constantly sharing ideas and thoughts so there’s a lot of overlap in the thinking and the approach, but they’re aligning with different products and user contexts than we are.
So there is a need for a certain amount of deviation, but it comes together really well as we’re all following the same philosophy.
The UI is enabled by things like the screen size, by the GPU, which has meant that the display is always in focus, so what do we do? We try and create a seamless front surface to de-clutter the front of the product, take away the buttons and have one action point, bringing the UI to the forefront.
Yes, the Xperia Z Ultra is like a beautiful book to hold and look at, but when you turn this on, the hardware disappears into the background and the UI encompasses you. That’s our take on it. Then the UI people have to deliver on that.
CB: You put a lot of focus on removing buttons on your smartphones and tablets. Why is that when some consumers feel comforted by them?
TW: We think removing the unessential buttons is just that: they’re unessential. By focusing on the power button and the volume switch, which are tremendously important as people use them a lot, it allows us to have another unlock feature in the UI, so it’s all about trying to reduce clutter on the product to make it easier to use.
- Words: Gareth Beavis is phones and tablets editor for TechRadar.
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