Click here to view the video on YouTube.

LONDON, United Kingdom – Since the launch of the Nokia Lumia 800 two weeks ago at Nokia World 2011 I’ve been lucky enough to spend time with some of the key designers responsible for its creation, in order to bring you this exclusive in-depth video documentary. It’s as much a story about collaboration and taking risks as it is about design. At 8-minutes long, it’s not your ordinary bite-size online video, but it is packed with heaps of fascinating insights and exclusive access to never-before-seen materials. So it’s worth setting aside a little time if you’re interested in discovering how the Nokia Lumia 800 was born.

Stefan Pannenbecker

VP of Industrial Design: “You know what’s most rewarding? People are looking at Nokia with fresh eyes again”

The Nokia Lumia 800 builds on Nokia’s “fabula” design language, a visual style that has been created to be used across a range of products, including the Nokia N9. But in creating Nokia’s first Windows Phone there was a whole lot more to the process than simply blending together Nokia hardware and Microsoft software. There was an amazing amount of collaboration and a brave new approach to design that was applied to enable this product to come to life. This process was underpinned by a shared vision and determination from both Nokia and Microsoft, passionately articulated by Stefan Pannenbecker, VP of Industrial Design at Nokia:

“We had one simple goal…
to build a better phone. Something that seamlessly fuses the best industrial design with the best software and user experience.”

Fast forward to key moments in the video >>

Kate Freebairn

Creative Director, Lumia UX Design: “Great collaboration isn’t a science. It’s about the people“

0m 28s – It takes courage to try something new
1m 02s – New collaborative experience fuels design ambition
1m 22s – Reaction to the Nokia Lumia 800 at Nokia World 2011
1m 41s – The art of great collaboration
1m 56s – Unsung heroes
2m 33s – Starting a partnership of this magnitude
2m 53s – Friendly SWAT team of designers
3m 20s – Technologically advanced and natural to use
3m 45s – The bones

Chris Linnett

Head of Lumia UX Design: “We’ve only just begun to witness the tremendous result this collaboration with Microsoft can produce”

3m 59s – Antenna performance guides the design and materials used
4m 19s – Early design studies and 3D wax models
4m 38s – A truly beautiful product made out of plastic
5m 02s – Techniques typically associated with metal work
5m 16s – Physical design and software experience become one
5m 56s – Subtle design elements
6m 23s – Creating a product designed to be used all over the world
6m 40s – Contacts Transfer app
6m 56s – Only the beginning
7m 15s – Taking a risk and seeing the reward

Nokia Lumia 800 photo gallery

Nokia Lumia 800: Early 3D print-out of the product made of wax

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What else would you like to see?

If there’s anything in this video documentary you’d like us to explore in further depth, or any other design related stories you’d particularly like us pursue, share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.

Innovations

Innovative products and technologies.

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Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Ben Rudolph is from Microsoft and he runs their evangelism program. He’s super passionate about Windows Phone and Microsoft’s partnership with Nokia, but not in a happy-clappy way. He’s an expert with great insight into the benefits of the partnership and what it really means for people using Nokia devices with Windows Phone. Hit play to see what he had to say at Nokia World 2011.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

LONDON, UK – Dean Pattrick is Nokia’s go-to-guy for all things Music, and here at Nokia World 2011 he talks us through the new music offering available on Nokia Lumia 800 and Nokia Lumia 710. He walks us through a bunch of smart new integrations, including Gig Finder and Mix Radio.

Let us know your thoughts on Nokia Music in the comments section below.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

The Nokia Lumia 710 is here, and we’ve been taking a closer hands-on look. Click play see our exclusive video of our new Windows Phone.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

We’ve been lucky enough to get a first hands-on look at the new Nokia Lumia 800. Hit the play button to watch our exclusive video of Nokia’s first Windows Phone in action.

LONDON, England – Symbian Belle marks the latest step in the iterative evolution of Symbian. You may already know what Belle lets you do, and the new features it includes (if not check out our quick lowdown), but here on Conversations it’s our responsibility to dig deeper and use our exclusive access to bring you an inside look behind the blue curtain. So with that in mind we decided to shoot a short video documentary at Nokia’s London design studio with a view to surfacing the lesser-known story behind Belle and Nokia’s design process. We interview the designers responsible for Symbian Belle and let them explain the vision, observations, learnings and processes go into creating a great user experience.

Sit back, hit play, and share your thoughts and questions with us in the comments section. And check out our behind-the-scenes photo gallery.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Behind the scenes photos

Symbian Belle comes pre-loaded on the new Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600. And if you’re using existing Symbian^3 phone, Symbian Belle will soon be available on the following handsets: Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia X7, Nokia E6 and Nokia 500.

Read on to find out more. If you haven’t met Niklas before, join us after the jump for a quick intro.

In case you were wondering, Niklas’ favourite film of all time is Animal House and the first album he ever bought was by Slade. So make your tweets count as he’ll be picking a few of the best questions and responding to them in a video that we’ll feature right here on Conversations.

In addition to spending the hour responding to your questions via Twitter, Niklas will be sharing his thoughts on the mobile industry, Nokia’s most recent devices, its services strategy, and heaps more.

So remember to get your questions ready, and tweet them to @NiklasatNokia tomorrow 5 August between 6-7pm GMT (10-11am PDT, 1-2pm EDT)

Never met Niklas before? Watch this video of our very own Phil Schwarzmann putting your questions to him earlier this year.

Plus, check out this alternative interview with Niklas by the folks over at Mobile Industry Review. Want to find out more about the man behind the job? Hit play to find out.

Niklas Savander of Nokia: The Alternative Interview from Mobile Industry Review on Vimeo.

What are the biggest challenges when innovating for the future to improve battery life for mobile devices?

Jussi: “Battery life is simply a question of two issues – how much energy you have and how quickly you are spending it. The first question relates to the size and energy density of the energy storage. The bigger the battery, the more energy you have. But then you have also more weight and volume to carry around. So increasing energy density could allow the same size and weight but more energy. The second question relates effectively to more energy efficient devices and also to the ways of using them. As always, you typically give up something to gain something so it’s a question of trade-offs. There are several challenges related to this category:
• One of the biggest challenges of power consumption relates to the wide spectrum of activities that you can do with your mobile device. Some activities simply take much more power than others. So, where should I spend my energy?
• The fast evolution of applications, use cases and the ways of using the device also mean that devices are often used in quite unexpected ways. So we should prepare for the unexpected when optimising the power consumption.
• It is also the question of expectations. Should I have the same web browsing time with my smartphone as with my laptop?
• Moreover, it is increasingly a question of communities. You can install whatever applications on your mobile device. But did the software programmer implement his/her code in a power-efficient way? And does the consumer use the application in the most energy-efficient way?”

What opportunities are there related to power, and where is your research taking you?

Jussi: “You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs, but perhaps the omelet is not always the right choice for dinner. We are promoting Holistic Energy and Power Management. This means simply that we are looking at the big picture, not just a detailed part of the device and its usage. So instead of looking at how to reduce the power consumption of a WLAN chipset, we are figuring ways to keep the WLAN idle or to allow it to go to sleep as optimally as possible. Or perhaps you can do some activities simultaneously because 1 + 1 is sometimes less than 2. Or perhaps you should burn energy fast in one part of the device so that another part can get to sleep much faster.”

What are the most exciting alternative power sources for mobile devices and why?

Jussi: “There is lots of research around the world going on related to alternative power sources. There is perhaps no one clear global winner but rather new sources that are useful in different contexts. And you can always combine various technologies. But be aware about the various power levels of different devices. You may easily power a wrist watch with a solar panel, but for recharging a mobile phone, you will need a much bigger solar panel or some new solar panel technologies.”

Share your thoughts in the comments section directly below.

GLOBAL

Little did we know that so much went into picking a colour palette for a device – it’s not nearly as one-dimensional a process you might imagine. It turns out that creating a collection of colours requires a whole lot of research, design expertise and understanding of core construction materials in order to achieve the best and most arresting effects.

We caught up with Pinja Rouger, Senior Designer for Colours and Materials, and Axel Meyer, Head of Design for Nseries, to get their insights on choosing colours for a device and the shades available for the Nokia N8.

Pinja gave us a little background on the design process of choosing colours, and enlightened us to the fact that different countries and even regions have unique colour preferences:

“To define the right colours for a product is quite a long process. What we do internally is understand different regions of the world and what colour preferences each country or area has. From that we build quite a wide palette, and we start testing on what material the colour looks best – aluminium for example, and how does it feel. We’ll take colour samples to different kinds of people and ask how do people like it, and see what colours are preferred. And of course we can do quite large studies as well. So we can give enough options for a global product and ensure there’s something there for everyone.”

Choosing aluminium enabled the design team to present the five colours in a way that maintained the metallic and robust feel of the Nokia N8, as granted by the material.

“Aluminium as a material gives us the possibility to make the most out of colours. That inspired us to bring bright colours in. With aluminium what you can do is you anodise in this oxidation process, so you can bring colour into the metal without actually hiding the metal, so it still looks like metal.”

As for the colours, Pinja provides some insight into why they were chosen.

“The light metal colour comes from the aluminium itself. So the main structure is aluminium and this is the natural colour of it, so that’s something we found very beautiful when finding the nice smooth finish on it. We wanted to have that as well as the colours. It’s also a really classical choice. As a balance for the light one we have the dark one. Here we studied quite different shades of grey and shades of black and in the end ended up going with this dark grey tone which is not fully black – it helps balances the whole range of colours with both shades offering more classical tones and options of light and dark. For the brighter colours we have these three colours. Starting with the orange, with this colour we wanted to bring some warmth to the colour palette and give a fresh orange tone that is still sophisticated and looks high quality. We also looked into what colours work well on this material and this finish [anodised aluminium]. We have the bright blue, which is more of a cool tone, that feels quite young and fun as well. And last but not least the green, which is really the freshest tone in the palette that also brings something a bit more extreme to the colour range. It’s making the options a little bit more fun and enables everyone to have something personal to pick.”

Speaking to Alex Meyer, Head of design for Nseries, he also explained how the colours of the Nokia N8 could achieve other smart theme effects.

“We wanted to think that in the case of N8 having the possibilities of using aluminium would allow us to blend the physical with the digital, and work also so each of the N8s will come with a theme that is blended with the colour of the device… I think it’s really super nice to bring some colours that reflect people’s spirits and express who they are.”

Let us know which colour you chose by voting in our reader poll above, and let us know why you picked the shade you did in the comments section below.

Global

Nokia N8 first HD video sample from Nokia Conversations on Vimeo.

All the details: Nokia Lumia 800

All about our stunning new smartphone.

The specs; the price; the facts