Nokia reorients target demographic, designs "Buttons for Humans"

If you or anyone you love has ever been subjected to the horrors of a Nokia keypad gone terribly wrong, you're sure to get a chuckle out of their new "Buttons for Humans" slogan for the 6101 clamshell. Russell Beattie gives the campaign a great sendup, and has collected a few of his favorite instruments of torture as seen above. We'd just like to know who the buttons were for in those pre-6101 days of pain. Cthulhu? Dolphins? Your mom? We know Nokia has a wide customer base to please, but we'd really like to know which alien race they got to do usability testing for some of these handsets.

[Via Russell Beattie]

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 14th 2006 3:27PM]

i am a spammer: [e-mail]

[Munk Posted Apr 14th 2006 3:42PM]

:S.. What was so inhuman abt earlier Nokia Keypads. Everyone i know owns atleast 2 Nokia's (if not more) & i have never heard a serious complain abt their keypads (some are flimsy, but i cant see how thats in-human!?).

Whats so different about the 6101 keypad?

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 14th 2006 7:25PM]

I have a 3200 and I can complain about the keypad: it just doesn't work to play any java games (except puzzle bobble) and I type sms slower than ever... I'm almost thinking about getting my old 3330 back :S

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 14th 2006 9:40PM]

Whatever haters...NOKIA still rocks. Everything else is just good for a little hacky sack or leveling the table to save your beer.

-M.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 15th 2006 12:13AM]

I gladly tossed my Nokia 7610 that I paid $500 for last year in the trash today in favor of the Sony Ericsson K750i I got today. The 7610 feels painfully slow to use, but it was the keypad that really did me over. Every key has a different pressure sensitivity, and some (5, 9) have to be pressed extremely hard to be recognized. FUCK that nokia piece of crap keypad design on all their phones with faceplates where there's just a keypad placed on top of the actual buttons. it doesn't stay lined up right and ugh it was just awful.

I am a HUGE Nokia fan btw, why else would I have bought the 7610. I just thought I would get adjusted to the keypad and it would be fine. It wasn't the layout that bothered me in the end, it was the quality/durability.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 15th 2006 3:15PM]

Nokia 3220 has a keypad made for people with tiny pointy fingers. I had such a hard time with all the buttons, but especially the center navigation button. I have the Nokia 6101 and I do really like it.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 16th 2006 2:45AM]

I've got a 7210 (shown in that collage). My boss says the button layout looks evil, but I think it's just fine...

BUT, it's 3 years old now, and acting a bit goofy, so I can't wait for Nokia to bring a GOOD phone to Canada.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 16th 2006 2:38PM]

To #2 and others -- certainly not all Nokia's had bad keypads. In fact, I would argue that their early phones had the best/simplest. But you can't possibly think for even a second that some of their designs aren't so unfuckingbelievably horrific that you just want to hide under your bed and cry. The 3660?
http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1004522.html

Yikes. Strangely, this new one looks an awful lot like the greatest keypad of ALL TIME, the one that happens to be found on the Moto V600:
http://www.accessoriesresources.com/bookpic/200542916553524371.jpg

At least Nokia can make fun of themselves. Which is cool.

[(Unverified) Posted Apr 16th 2006 4:21PM]

Nokia claims that it's 6101 has "buttons built for a man, not a mouse." So, clearly, mice are the species targeted by tiny joysticks on Sony Ericsson phones and the oddball layouts on Nokia's past efforts.

No question the 3650 has among the silliest keypad designs ever foisted on an unsuspecting public (though the Samsung/B&O Serene does it one better by keeping circular key arrangement and putting it ON TOP of the screen...). But I'm with Jacob (#7)'s boss: the 7210 has to be Nokia's worst keypad design of all time because it uses rocker switches to combine things like engaging speakerphone (on one end of a small rocker switch) and HANGING UP THE CALL (on the the other end of the switch). I can't count how many people I hung up on while testing that phone. Nice Series 40 device otherwise with some neat accessories (the lanyard camera was particularly well designed).

But Nokia isn't out of the woods with its current lineup, either. All the current designs with the four essentially blank selection/send/end keys are overly minimalistic. Consumers new to Nokia phones cannot possibly know which key to press to initiate or answer a call, so a trip to the user guide is mandatory for the most basic phone functions.

The 8801 could also use some ergonomic help - there are blank spots in the precise location that Nokia puts menu selection buttons on its other phones. The spots look like buttons but are actually... dead space. The actual menu selection buttons are higher on the phone, and look like slider ridges. The middle selection button IS a slider ridge, not a button. The combined effect is to confuse anyone who is not new to Nokia phones, who will inevitably push the dead spots and think their phone's menu system is broken.

-avi