The birth of surface

Abstract: American Science and technology blogger, Ralf Groene, Microsoft Industrial Design director Lalfgroni, has brought the unknown behind-the-scenes story to the Surface tablet development process. From touch vinyl, to the edge of the fuselage of the chamfer design, all show

Lalf Grony, an American technology blogger, interviewed Microsoft Industrial Design director Ralf Groene, and brought the unknown behind-the-scenes story to the Surface tablet development process. From touch vinyl, to the edge of the fuselage of the chamfer design, all show this team to the product details of the attention, and surface team, also strive to Microsoft's brand concept into which, and the tradition further forward.

The following is the full text of the article:

When it comes to new hardware design, most companies will be secretive and secretive about the design process. Unlike the cautious rivals, Microsoft has taken a more open approach to its Surface tablet. Earlier this week, on the eve of the launch of Surface Pro with Intel processors, I had the honor of visiting Microsoft Industrial Design Director Lalf Grony, who also gave a brief introduction to Surface's development and design process.

About Lalf Grony

Grony was born in Germany, where he brought the full version of surface, touch, Type vinyl. Unfortunately, Microsoft is not allowed to take pictures at the meeting.

Although Grony's name is not yet well known, the range of products that he has been involved in designing may have long been familiar. After stepping out of college, he joined the Palo Alto design team (Palo Alto) and began his first project--rocket E-readers, one of the earliest e-readers.

Since then he has joined the frog, Ideo and many other design companies. In Ideo, he became the head of design for the company's Palo Alto studio. These experiences have given him the opportunity to work as a consultant, with many very interesting customers, but have never been involved in product launches from the conceptual stage. And he was obviously itching to be able to complete the whole product development process.

Seven years ago, Microsoft hired Grony and he started developing a mouse and keyboard for the software giant. He began the design of the arc mouse, as well as the arc touch, the arc keyboard, and the LifeCam camera.

The birth of surface

Grony revealed that after Microsoft had worked on similar work for several years, Panos Banne (Panos Panay) called him into the office one day, and the two people discussed the project, which was later surface. This is the birth of surface, "Grony recalls." At first, we were just a very small team with very few members, which resembled a start-up company. And we got a mission: to design computers for Microsoft. "It sounded a bit surprising when Microsoft had never built its own computer, but for Grony to be able to get involved in the project, it really cheered him up," he said.

Although the first one to think of Microsoft to build their own computer, still can not be verified, but it is clear that this product is in line with Microsoft's strategic design. Grony said that the recently outgoing Windows Department President, Stephen Sinnowski (Steven Sinofsky), was their focal point and assigned the project to them. However, Microsoft has never used the focus group approach in product design discussions during the development process.

The core team, with only about 15 members, thought that surface's early design thought didn't take long. One of the team's first decisions was that everything outside of the assembly was pro--this includes engineering, software design, product design, manufacturing, and so on. Grony that big companies like Microsoft can hire any consultant they want, but "the real value of the products they create comes from the people who are really committed to the business." We have never invited any consultants for this project. ”

During the "Start-up phase", the entire core team basically identified most of the basic concepts of surface, including the appearance of future products and the meaning of the brand. Grony points out that some of the important ideas of surface, such as stents and physical keyboards, have been formed in the early stages of the project. "Early designs have covered all of the core elements of Surface RT, Surface Pro now. ”

In fact, Grony also shows us an early design prototype for surface, which includes all the important elements-the keyboard that acts as a protection mask, and a bracket. An interesting early idea was to add a small screen to the back of the tablet to show status updates and other information. Grony revealed that his team also considered using a 11.6-inch screen, but eventually decided to give up because it was too big for a tablet.

Surface Core Concept

It took about 10 weeks, and the team built the core idea of surface, essentially the same as the current product.

Grony that every design needs a core concept, and that the product needs to be developed around this core concept. In his view, design is not just to make the product look good. The surface team was also aware of a problem early on, that is, whether the surface products need to represent the core values of Microsoft's brand. "Microsoft is a big brand with a unique set of attributes. Grony pointed out, "If you want to do things well, you need to use Word, Excel and other products, you will find that Windows is really very practical." ”

Even if one day the PC fades away in front of our eyes, or transforms into other forms, these values will still stand there. The idea, he argues, was a quick way for the team to find an important breakthrough, and conceived the surface prototype now, and Sinofsky immediately liked the idea.

In Grony's words, this means that surface's core task is to "make Windows 8 viable". Part of the inspiration for the final design comes from the Metro interface design used in Windows 8. Just as Windows 8 made a slight concession to push the application to the forefront, the center, Grony believes that good design should not be a razor-sharp, distracting. He wants to be able to create a good tool, not to worry about how gorgeous the style is.

In his view, Windows 8 is a "truly digital" design. The old desktop desktop, mainly based on Xerox's desktop design concept, was later replicated by Apple and later adopted by Microsoft--based on the idea of a simulated world. "We have lived too long in that time," Grony says. "When you create something new, it makes people's world tremble a little." ”

Add Keyboard design

Since Excel and Word have become an important part of the Microsoft brand, adding a keyboard to the tablet design is an inevitable choice, and from the outset the team has considered the idea of adding a functional protective sleeve. Grony points out that people should not regard Microsoft's legacy as a "burden", but that his team's task is to magnify some of the important values of these traditions, as well as the overall value of some Windows 8 systems.

When it comes to surface development, when interacting with the Windows 8 team, Microsoft points out that the development team and other hardware partners used the exact same early system version. Because the surface project, may let Microsoft and its hardware cooperation between the relationship, become some subtle, nervous, such a statement is very normal. One thing is clear, though, is that the Windows 8 team has certainly played a part in the surface design process. After all, Sinofsky himself has been a bridge between the team and other parts of Microsoft.

Microsoft's Touch vinyl has long been an important marketing selling point for surface's RT Tablet PC. Grony that the feeling of using touch vinyl is significantly better than typing on the knocking glass. He believes the product has advanced the keyboard. The early models looked very primitive, even ugly, as if drawing a piece of plastic.

In our discussion, Grony the final design to a digital camera, because its presence allows analog signals to be transferred to the digital world and to make the information better. In addition, the team tested different kinds of magnets to ensure that touch vinyl can support the device securely, without allowing the user too much effort to open it. However, because Microsoft's brand purpose is to provide people with choices ("We do not dictate what people should like"), the company decided to go further and make type vinyl.

Surface Magnesium Body

Although Microsoft's introduction to the comments, mainly around touch vinyl, but Grony still stressed the package of surface magnesium fuselage design process. In the development of surface RT, the team of materials scientists have discovered a new way to quickly pour hot liquid magnesium into the mold, to build the fuselage of the device, and to take care of the lightness and solidity of the shell.

When it comes to details, Grony tells me that surface's fuselage poses a big challenge to the design team. He and Panos Panay often take Asia together, not only to work with local manufacturers, but also to take a large number of gauges and gauges to measure each part of the product to ensure they meet the product requirements. Grony recalls that he flew to Asia at least 10 times last year. The team's attention to detail is even deeper than that.

Grony noticed that the edge of the surface's fuselage was too sharp, so the team purposely purchased a new CNC machine tool (CNC), adding a 3-millimeter small bevel to reduce this feeling. Although this will cost a certain price, because the team has been given enough attention by the Microsoft Management team, you can often do something similar crazy. At first, Surface Pro's corner design should also be consistent with RT, but because its fuselage thicker, such angle design is limited to a little. To solve this problem, Microsoft has purchased an expensive 5-axis milling machine that can polish the border to different angles.

With the launch of Surface Pro later this week, Microsoft will further expand the surface family and will allow its tablet product line to present all of Windows 8 's capabilities. With Intel's chips, the product is thicker than RT-designed to add more vents and larger batteries. Surface RT uses a three-piece magnesium alloy design (frame, backplane and leg), but the team-Pro model improves the manufacturing process by combining the frame with the back panel.

Earlier, Grony that Microsoft thought the surface team was too small to solve both RT and pro issues. And he didn't quite figure out why RT became the first model they focused on.

In his view, users will see the two Surface products as brothers rather than twin--surface Pro, a tablet-enabled laptop, while Surface RT is a tablet computer with a laptop function.

It's obvious that pro is more powerful than RT, and at the cost of it, its battery endurance is relatively poor and heavier. Grony regrets that at present both fish and bear's paw can not be both. "You have to decide what you want: a truck or a sports car," although both have their own strengths, but if you have to combine the two, you may end up with a pickup truck.

Looking to the future, in addition to surface Pro, Grony obviously can not talk about this product line more topics. But he repeated that pro and RT were not the end points-"We don't stop at the idea level." "Microsoft clearly will continue to expand the surface family. Although the direction of development is not known, but Grony said that his team "for these ideas, there is a strong passion", we should be able to imagine that the product development trend will continue.

Surface's core design team is still fairly complete and small. In a studio in the Microsoft Campus, Grony may have a surface design prototype full of several suitcases. With Microsoft's consistent tradition, we can still expect more of this product to be born at some point in the future.