Design @ Dell

Welcome to our first post regarding Design @ Dell.  Today, Steve and I will introduce Dell’s philosophy behind design and user experience.

As many of you are probably aware, the direct model influences almost everything we do.  It allows our design and user experience teams to interact directly with customers at any point in the product development cycle.  Our challenge is to continually think through how we can design products that balance aesthetics with functionality.  We use feedback from customers to achieve that balance.  In our view, the design and usability work that our teams do ultimately influences the experience our customers have with our products. 

To guide this process, we have established core tenets that impact our complete line of products ranging from rack-mounted servers to corporate notebooks to multi-function printers.  It is what makes a Dell a Dell.  Those tenets include:

Consistency in Behavior – From connector locations to button characteristics, our products are designed to behave in a predictable that is consistent between similar products in a line.

Brand Alignment – Similar product lines with similar brand values serving similar customers are aligned under a common, unifying design language strategy.

Innovation Going beyond customer’s needs and expectations.  It comes in a variety of forms—from the numerous user-centric features on our UltraSharp flat panel displays and our intuitive user interface for our printer line, to our recently-launched hybid offering—the XPS M2010 Mobile Entertainment system.

Value – Great designs, each appropriate for meeting our different customer’s needs.

In upcoming posts, we’ll drill further into each of these tenets and provide more insight to priorities and motivations behind Design @ Dell.  Stay tuned—and if there’s a specific topic you’d like to hear more about, let us know.

Thanks,
Ken Musgrave & Steve Gluskoter, Directors of Industrial Design

About the Author: Ken Musgrave