Design I FLIP for...

In tackling this Design I Like blog, I wanted to consider both the aesthetic and functional aspects of design. In surveying my dorm room for an object that offered both things, I landed on my Puredigital Flip Video camera. This 6-inch by 2-inch slab of plastic can capture up to one hour of footage, in a sleek and intuitive design.

Aesthetically the flipvideo camera is very modern and sleek. Its white and orange casing lacks any of the extraneous buttons, logos and plugs that had hampered earlier designs. The orange plastic outlines the sides and lens of the camera, while the white casing slides open to hold the batteries. Small gray letter fill the bottom right hand corner with the “flip” logo. On the screening side of the camera, a small 1” x 1” screen fills the upper half of the camera, with a simple control panel beneath it. This interface has a gray background. The buttons are symmetrical in design with a central red button surrounded by two arrow buttons to the left and right, and “plus” and “minus “ buttons to the top and bottom. Approaching the camera as a composition, it is balanced in this nature; no one side is has a disproportional amount of buttons, logos or colors. Aesthetically I find the bright shiny white and orange colors stimulating and inviting. The design suggests ease, openness and comfortablity with its light color scheme and compact size.

The design of the controls and buttons of the flip camera extends these impressions to functional. Using the vocabulary of Donald Norman’s Guide to “POET” (the psychology of everyday things), each control button and option affords and constrains appropriately. The larger red button “affords” being pushed as do all others on the screen interface. To the bottom of the “sliding” lock function with three grips affords the “sliding” motion, as do the on and off slider on the upper left hand side and the “flipping” USB slider on the right hand side. There is no mistaking what these controls do. These buttons are constrained by very sleek and simple symbols. The “+” and “-“ signs constrain these buttons to either add or subtract. When recording they logically zoom in or out, when playing back a clip, they raise or lower the volume. The red center button indicates recording or stopping; the triangle button to the left constrains to playing and playback. To the left and right of the red record button the “arrow” signs constrain the function to scrolling between videos. All in all, the user intuitively figures out how each button works, and what their corresponding functions are.

The simple design and lack of fancy buttons coupled with compact size makes the Puredigital Flipcamera an inviting tool for young media makers. Its bright design, orange, white and gray color schemes say, “I’m open for business.” Its size says, “take me anywhere” and its lack of buttons say, “Grandma Myra could figure me out.”