“Today we have moved from a very IT centric to design and consumer focused products”

Eskild Hansen, Senior Manager – European Design Center, Cisco Consumer Business Group, spoke to Nivedan Prakash about the company’s approach towards networking products and role of design in providing complete consumer experience

Eskild Hansen

In your capacity as the Head of European Design Center at Cisco CBG, how far have you been successful in revamping the design of consumer range of networking products? How has been the acceptance of these revamped products in the global market?

If you look back some years I hope it is clear that we had a big shift in the way we have been developing and designing products. We have moved from a very IT centric to design and consumer focused products. I personally see this as a big success. Now we have to look forward and create the future vision.

Design is integrating technology into the creation process and into our products, understanding local culture regional aesthetic trends and our users, and lastly it is the holistic Premium Customer Experience.

The new sleek router design is the first design project developed by the design team (US and European). The new design comes with a shiny finish, alluring curves and slim profile which refreshes and revamps the industrial design on Linksys by Cisco router models. The new router design is well received by consumers and we have also received a lot of positive feedback from media.

What kind of methodologies and thoughts that have gone into revamping the networking products lately?

The establishment of two design centers in Denmark and the US help to drive the design vision and development for future consumer products.

Detailed market research was conducted to reveal consumer preferences for design. Out of the over 160 designs that were reviewed, consumers showed preferences for sleek, contemporary designs which illustrated high performance and blended seamlessly with trendy homes. Internal antennas and new color palette were also results of the extensive market research.

As mentioned, the new sleek router design is the first design project developed by the design organization. The new design also features the new enhanced internal antenna technology which adds to the aesthetic design of the routers without compromising on performance or reliability.

We see design as more than simply designing a product; it includes the packaging, product, interaction, user interface, and customer service. Our focus is on Experience Design, which defines the complete interaction between the product and the customer. It is the full customer experience from purchase to setup to use.

Could you share the changing landscape of consumer networking sentiment?

As more and more entertainment content is delivered over the Internet and as consumers demand access to digital entertainment inside and outside of their home networks, networked entertainment devices will become an integral part of consumer electronics.

A market transition is underway from the connected home where a broadband connection is shared by multiple PCs, to the media-enabled home where all consumer devices, services and content are designed to leverage the network and enable visual networking experiences.

What are the challenges you normally face while designing any product?

The main challenge is to come up with new and ground breaking designs that are simple and intuitive. You could say “being different, without being strange.”

What is the role of design in providing the complete consumer experience?

As the Internet becomes a pervasive presence in homes, we see consumers becoming more sophisticated in their needs and demands. Typically gateways and routers are seen as these big, rectangular grey boxes you want to hide somewhere. Instead, our products are made as a part of the décor and dispense with wires providing the total user experience for every product in terms of how it works, acts, reacts, feels and looks.