That annoying switcheroo between tablet screen and keyboard may not be the most dramatic issue you're facing today, but it's certainly irritating enough to interrupt your workflow. A Korean designer has recognised the issue and imagined a nifty bit of kit to solve the problem. Enter: the SLIDE keyboard.
Sometimes it feels as if you need a desk the size of a table tennis table to fit everything onto it, and shifting around between the tablet screen and the keyboard doesn't help. This keyboard design integrates the two pieces of tech. Why have two products on your desk, when you could only have one?
Conceived by industrial design student Cheolsu Park in a project for Chung-ang University’s Aura Design Lab, the design incorporates a tablet within the base of a keyboard. You can see his project detailed on his Behance page, which includes an impressive mood board detailing his process (see our mood board post on how to make your own).
"SLIDE is a combination of tablet and keyboard," explains Park. "I designed this product to relieve the inconvenience of using tablet and keyboard at the same time.
"Having two products on your desk at the same time takes up a lot of space on your desk, and when you need to use only your keyboard, you need to put the tablet aside," Park continues. "However, with SLIDE, you can use the tablet simply by pushing it up. Once you've used the tablet, you can simply get it down and it's back in the form of the keyboard."
The SLIDE's base is weighted, to ensure ideal weight distribution when the keyboard is extended, and the keyboard also locks into place so that it doesn't spring out of place when in use. There are handy buttons at the side of the keyboard to block the slide. Park has also created sleek tablet pens to match the keyboard.
Park has been working on other problem-solving products, too. These include a smart suitcase for blind people, self-driving and designed to identify surroundings in the same way as a walking stick.
We think the keyboard is great bit of design, and hope it becomes reality. It looks weighty and professional, and we bet the slide function feels pretty satisfying to operate. This innovation solves a problem in a similar way to this AI website prototype, which attempts to fix our posture. Both creations are courtesy of young designers who were looking for solutions to everyday issues, a great starting point for successful design.
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