Ericsson Dialog - Design Process

Design Process

Due to the massive amount of telephones intended to be produced, uncommonly heavy emphasis was put on design. The exemplars for the future basic telephone of every home were Ericsson's own models from the 1930s. Dialog was to both be modern and follow Ericsson's design tradition. The ergonomics of the handle were focused on. Additionally acoustic, productional, and aesthetical questions needed to be solved.

The handle was accurately sized according to the regular face which had been taken as the starting point of the design process. In the completed product the distance between the mouth part and the ear part was noticeably shorter than earlier models. The handle was made as light as possible to minimise the stress inflicted upon the wrist and blood veins of the speaker during long calls. The weight of the base unit was also minimised especially due to logistic and packaging reasons. The number disc consisted of several parts and was designed so that it would be possible to replace with a set of buttons in the upcoming versions of the phone.

The depth and thoroughness of the design is perhaps best depicted by the fact that the inner lighting of the phone was one of the matters taken into account: the inside could not be left pitch dark in order to avoid insects inhabiting the product.