Not just techies chip in for phone designs

New Delhi: Ever wondered about the brains behind mobile phone designs? It is not just brilliant techies but also a diverse creative pool ranging from ethnographers to sociologists to artists. For the popular global mobile phone brand Nokia the designs are outcome of collaborative and continuous process that take years to materialise.

According to Vipul Mehrotra, Nokia India's Director & Head of Smart Devices, the people involved in designing are a diverse mix such as "ethnographers, sociologists, consumer researchers and artists", among others. "A cross section of functions ... A lot of research and foresights (into designing a mobile phone). It is more of a collaborative effort and a continuous process that takes years," he told PTI. And Indian market, he opined, provides a lot of "thinking" for mobile phone designs.

"In our opinion, it is a bi-polar market. There is a lot of diversity and there is a lot of learning from the Indian market... There is a lot of colour in the Indian society. A lot of thinking originates from here (Indian market)," he noted. Delving further on designs, he pointed out that colour is one of the influencing factors. "Colour for sure. The vibrancy in the Indian society and the colour we have, a lot of that things originate from here. That's for sure," Mehrotra said. He said that mobile phones should feel natural and not be too big or obtuse. "The movement of fingers around the touch screen and how you use the phone has to feel nature. It should not feel awkward," he added.

Looking to bolster its presence in the highly competitive smartphone segment, Nokia is all set to launch two models of 'Lumia' phones later this month in India. Running on Windows operating system, Lumia would also be the first offering since Finnish entity Nokia and software major Microsoft unveiled a strategic partnership in February this year.

"It (Lumia) has been designed (in such a way) that it feels natural. What's inside it... that's what I say that beauty is on the outside and beast inside...," Mehrotra noted. Earlier this year, Nokia had launched its dual SIM phones which have elicited good response from the market.