Francis Li
Peacock PDA
The Peacock PDA concept was developed during Applied Dreams, a two-week workshop in collaboration with Hitachi Design Centre Europe exploring the future of smart mobile devices.
When closed, the Peacock PDA looks and operates like a smartphone. However, it is composed of multiple layers that can fan-out like the tail of a peacock. The layers can have different functions and can be rearranged or removed from the stack to configure the device.
A screen layer can provide a secondary display of information. Touch sensors along the edges allow users to scroll the display by running their thumb against the bottom edge and to select items by tapping their finger on the top edge.
Having a secondary display can provide peripheral context and reduce back-and-forth navigation within an application. Note that the device could be adapted to a left-handed user simply by rotating the screen to the other side.
Other possible layer types could include a removable storage layer, a GPS receiver, or a digital camera layer. The device can be slim and compact by removing extraneous layers or fully featured without expansion cards that often protrude from their slots.
To demonstrate the feel of rotating layers, I created a physical hardware mockup that allowed users to control a computer screen-based simulation authored with Macromedia Flash.
The Peacock PDA concept was developed during Applied Dreams, a two-week workshop in collaboration with Hitachi Design Centre Europe exploring the future of smart mobile devices.
When closed, the Peacock PDA looks and operates like a smartphone. However, it is composed of multiple layers that can fan-out like the tail of a peacock. The layers can have different functions and can be rearranged or removed from the stack to configure the device.
A screen layer can provide a secondary display of information. Touch sensors along the edges allow users to scroll the display by running their thumb against the bottom edge and to select items by tapping their finger on the top edge.
Having a secondary display can provide peripheral context and reduce back-and-forth navigation within an application. Note that the device could be adapted to a left-handed user simply by rotating the screen to the other side.
Other possible layer types could include a removable storage layer, a GPS receiver, or a digital camera layer. The device can be slim and compact by removing extraneous layers or fully featured without expansion cards that often protrude from their slots.
To demonstrate the feel of rotating layers, I created a physical hardware mockup that allowed users to control a computer screen-based simulation authored with Macromedia Flash.
