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The Display is the Design Professional’s Desk
September 26, 1997
The display plays a central role in the work of professionals using computerised design tools, says Tapani Hyvönen, managing director of E&D Design, Scandinavia’s largest industrial design company. For the design professional, a large display screen has the same advantages as a large desk, provided the resolution and the refresh frequency are sufficiently high to provide a sharp and flicker free image.
An award-winning product designer, Tapani Hyvönen knows the PC display both as a tool and as a design challenge. He works with a 21-inch Nokia display.
Professional Requirements
Hyvönen says that the quality of the display image is of great importance to professionals working with a photorealistic image or a structural model of the final product. The most basic ergonomic requirement is that the resolution and the refresh frequency of the display are on a level ensuring that the picture is sharp and flicker free, he says.
It is equally important that it is easy to adjust the screen settings to suit changing ambient light conditions. Hyvönen approves of Nokia’s decision to provide easy access controls for brightness and contrast, the most adjusted image settings. He says every display needs some adjustment before entering professional service, but the settings provided by the manufacturer make a difference.
”Having worked with other displays as well, I can say that the factory settings of Nokia displays are remarkably good. The solution of setting the size, shape and geometry of the picture with the help of the On-Screen Menu and the Navi-key control is good, no question of it,” Tapani Hyvönen states.
Display Designed
The display is also a design challenge for the industrial designer. In a sense he has the advantage of understanding the importance of ergonomics in a tool central to his own work. Ergonomics research has established that it is good if one can focus one’s eyes within the same range when working with the mouse, the keyboard and the display. The movement of the eyes should place as little strain as possible on the neck by way of up and down movements.
The earlier practice of sitting the display on top of the central unit conflicts with such findings. Ergonomics backs the practice of placing the display on top of the desk. The design vision of a simple and flexible office accord with this in that it dispenses with the idea of office furniture as specialised engines, Hyvönen says.
The design of displays for professionals and corporate customers must be aimed at the creation of a strong brand image. The most important thing in this product segment is to gain the trust of the customer, Hyvönen stresses. The design must project a coherent image signalling that the company is operating in a goal-oriented, rational and systematic manner to further the interests of the user.
”Instead of flirting with passing fancies, one must apply a certain restrain in the design approach to build a brand image that is reliable and proud of itself. Instead of dashing after every fad and fashion, the professional brand design must point the way for the rest,” Tapani Hyvönen sums up.
Small Desk Tends to Get Messy
The standard choice of design professionals is a 21-inch display. Tapani Hyvönen says a large display screen is for the design professional like a large desk. It can accommodate the wealth of simultaneous information characteristic of the present PC environment. However, the screen must be genuinely large, that is, every part of it must be as sharp as a sharp small screen, he adds.
”It is quite normal for me to have five or six different applications open simultaneously on the screen – Internet, e-mail, Word, our own project management system. At the same time I may be working with a 3D or 2D CAD program. It’s just like having all these things open on the desk. If the desk is small, things fall off or get into a mess,” Hyvönen recounts.
When the design professional is working with 2D or 3D geometry, the models are so full of detail that it requires the whole of the large screen to craft the details, he adds.
Networking Tools
In the early days of computer-aided design the possibilities of the system tended to guide the work of the design professionals, although they’d never admit it, Hyvönen reflects. Today the designer is firmly on top of the IT system, he adds.
Computer networks are changing the nature of office work. E&D Design has an Intranet through which those working in the office are in a continuous contact with the outside world. The network is controlled through the company’s home page, providing access to all project information.
”No one would have dreamt a few years ago that a smallish professional organisation would manage information by means of a dedicated server. Now we have even our software stored in the server,” Tapani Hyvönen notes.
The linking of PCs into networks is changing work patterns in the office. Instead of people working separately, they can now work jointly while still staying at their workstations. What they need is the possibility of displaying several small screens on one large screen, Hyvönen notes.
He believes a very large part of work in the future office will be interactive, consisting of sketchy sorting, combining, supplementing and exchanging of information. With networks providing easy access to stored information, much less of the information people work with will be produced in the place where it is processed.
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