Crowdsourcing of smartphone design opens the door for brainstorming creativity and a widespread use of design talent. Designing smartphone concepts via crowdsourcing has the potential of leading gadgets makers to develop better devices.
Crowdsourcing Smartphone Design
The invention of the first smartphone completely changed our lives. With the birth of smartphones, new occupations and new jobs were born. Smartphones enables the users to have a better control over their lives and brought people closer like never before.
Through very simple and intuitive actions, smartphone users had developed a new pattern of living. Our world was changed in many ways with the advent of the smartphone. As time went by, we have seen many evolutions and revolutions in the mobile phone industry that kept bringing us excitement and surprises.
Nowadays, many of us cannot live without smartphones and people's lives have become interconnected with their mobile devices. From luxury, smartphones have become a commodity. To parallel this evolution of using the product, the way of designing the smartphone may change as well. Among those who've been a smartphone user for any length of time, many have probably thought that they could be better at designing a smartphone than the current models present on the market.
Instead of waiting for the big brands to design their next products, gifted individuals can show their own vision for the future of smartphones. They can come with groundbreaking, forward-looking and refreshingly creative product ideas that have the potential to bring revolutionary changes in our lives, just like the first smartphone did. The eYeka 2020 smartphone contest initiative is one of such crowdsourcing platforms for future smartphone concepts design.
ZTE's Smartphone Design Crowdsourcing Initiative
Chinese smartphone manufacturer ZTE has launched its "Project CSX," a smartphone concepts design program based on crowdsourcing. The program allows designing smartphones based on input from a community of users. The company's official forums accommodate the project.
According to ZTE, at every step of the smartphone products development process, CSX aims to engage directly with consumers. Users can post their new and creative smartphone design ideas on the CSX's social board. The selection of the best ideas is done via a democratic process, other users being able to vote up or comment on the smartphone concepts posted.
Those who design the best smartphone concepts and have their suggestion integrated into a ZTE project design can win a chance to the next CES trade show and cash prizes up to $1500. The setup of the Project CSX smartphone design crowdsourcing is very similar to LEGO's Ideas program. An early access feature allows community members to purchase the final product.
The initial submission round was followed in September by voting and concept presentation. Two more rounds of voting came to pass before a grand prize will be awarded now, in October. According to ZTE official Project CSX website, on Wednesday, Oct. 12, has been launched the final contest where users can vote on the device they want to see next.
The Verge reports that ZTE's crowdsourcing Project CSX has received some interesting suggestions. Among them is included a self-adhesive eye-tracking phone controlled by eye movement. Users never have to touch the gadget, as it can stick to a flat surface or wall.
The Project CSX contest goes on until Oct. 19. Such initiatives can certainly stimulate creativity and innovation. We hope to see some of these ideas materialized in future products.
