The palm zire 71 camera interface

ABSTRACT

In late summer of 2002, the Palm Human Interface (HI) Team was given four months to design a digital camera interface for the Palm Zire 71 handheld computer. The project required an unusual amount of coordination between HI, product management, engineering, and hardware industrial design (ID) to find ways to extend digital photography conventions into the context of the Palm OS and the not very camera-like form factor of the typical Palm device. This case study shows the evolution of the camera interface over the entire development period, placing design decisions in context with larger product developments. Discovery was minimal, user testing nonexistent, and there are no published results. In other words, this case study describes how an elegant human interface design gets created under real (i.e. unreasonable) deadlines and with typical (i.e. nonexistent) resources.

INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
concept design, design planning, industrial design, interaction design, product design, usability research, user interface design