Australian Design Awards 2011

Description and Principal Function

The design for the new Inspiron laptops began with consumer insight based on research through which consumer needs, desires, and pain-points were explored and understood by the development team and resulted in a thoughtful, new design language implemented across the new laptop series. The Inspiron 15R in particular was designed for family needs and features thoughtful, innovative design elements such as the Switch lid covers, cable/connector layout, hinge design, speaker placement, and buttons/controls layout. The Inspiron 15R features a 15.6-inch widescreen HD display, 2nd generation Intel Core processors, and up to 13 hours of life with the optional 19-cell battery.

Optional, switchable display lids
Inspiron R Laptops feature the ability to personalize your Laptop with contemporary, original artwork replacement lids exclusively designed to reflect your personality. Customers choose from among 20+ optional lids through the interactive Design Studio website. To change a lid, just press the single button on the lid, slide and lift and you are ready to remove and replace the lid. With this design, the development team was able to move the ability to personalize the laptop from the initial manufacturing to aftermarket which helped reduce manufacturing and logistics complexity while providing customers with even more flexibility to personalize their laptop.

Cable/Connector layout
The design composition of the Inspiron 15R form factor is a result of many elements coming together, all beginning with customer input. The ability to personalize the lids—repeatedly, sound output quality, controls design, and how the laptop connects, all contributed to the overall design composition. In particular, the cable and connector layout was based on investigation and understanding of how families would use the laptop so the less moveable, and heavy cable connections and the security lock feature were place on the rear, USB ports on all sides, and media inputs on the thinner, forward sides for better accessibility.

Hinge-forward industrial design
The Inspiron R Laptops feature a hinge-forward design with the elegant barrel hinge details on the top of the base and behind the keyboard which keeps the hinges protected from damage and cleaner looking visually. Because the overall laptop design composition considered the cable layout concurrently, the hinge-forward design allowed for all of the larger cables to be placed on the rear without any interference from the opening hinges and lid. The hinge-forward design creates a smaller footprint for the laptop which makes it more stable and much easier to open in constrained spaces like small café tables or airplanes.

Speaker design and placement
The Inspiron 15R form factor is a complete composition, top and bottom. The bottom surface and speakers of the laptop received the same degree of design attention as the rest of the laptop. In particular, the bottom surface towards the front of the laptop gently sweeps upward, in an “uplift” creating a thinner side profile and an ideal location for the two speakers. Customer input revealed how important good a sound experience was for a family laptop so the speakers were positioned to reflect and distribute the sound off of the user’s surface to create a more enhanced sound experience.

Buttons and controls layout
The Inspiron 15R button design and controls layout benefited from considerable customer research and feedback. From the simple, one-button control for easy lid removal to the re-conceived 3 button control center, the buttons and controls were essentially designed by the customers to meet their needs and give them more control of the PC functions. The new 3-button control center features, Windows Mobility Center, Dell Support Center, and Display on/off buttons. These are high-level function buttons that provide quick access to many sub-level functions such as the brightness, volume, battery status, wireless network, etc. controls via the Windows Mobility Center button.

Pros
It allows the user to customize their own laptop, and make it only the user's, so everyone can have their own customized laptop and make them stand out and express what kind of person they are from the way they customized their laptop

Cons
I am concern that the customized piece might be easy to break and how to install can be a new thing to learn, and it required pressure to install and if the user apply too much pressure, it can break the piece. Also, how to store the pieces might not be space efficient.

Improvements
I would improve the design by making the cover an LED screen, so that the user can customize their laptop without having to take the cover off.