Wireless Desktop 800 for Microsoft

I started this program in December of 09 so as you can imagine, I’m excited to see it finely hit shelves. It began as an ask from marketing to repackage an old keyset in a form factor that was compact and sleek. It was my first program as lead designer so the presser was on. The challenge was the keyset… it was bulky, overstated, and anything but “compact and sleek”. The key caps sagged down abnormally towards the middle of the keyboard and the dish on the individual keys were anything but subtle. The outdated, high travel keys, caused the overall stack up to be thick and bulky.

We started by condensing the keyset as much as possible to reduce the overall footprint. The gaps between the quordy, 4 way nav, and numpad were eliminated, reducing the length by over 10mm. We brought the media keys down over the numpad and aligned them with the f-row. This shortened the width but displaced the PCB.

The keyboard was getting much smaller from the top view, but the stack up was still extremely thick. To play down the thickness we increased the overall footprint and tapered off the edges. Most of the taper happened on the bottom case so that we could keep the top case smooth and sheet like. By extending the front edge downward, we created a palm and bridged the gap to the work surface. We utilized the space within the palm-rest for the two triple As and an elongated version of the PCB.

By compromising the tangible dimensions of the footprint for perceived slimness, we were able to conceal a bulky keyset into a form factor that was compact and sleek.