Testing the “going light” hypothesis.

We needed to test our hypothesis as quick as possible, the idea that people would enjoy disconnecting from the internet. We gave users a flip phone and simulated the call forwarding experience with carrier level dialer codes. We began testing what “going light” would feel like.

Everyone described an initial anxiety, it was a little bit more intense than we all expected. It felt like you were missing something, touching your pockets anxiously. However uncomfortable that feeling might have been, there was always a point where you forget to think about what you might be missing out on and you get lost in the present world around you. It is quite special.

We also learned that if you went “light” with friends, that initial anxiety didn’t really happen because you were preoccupied enjoying the time together from the beginning to even think about it. If that friend stood up to go to the bathroom, you might habitually reach for your phone and forget that you had in fact intentionally left it at home.

You see, multi tasking is a myth, it is glorified procrastination. It is addictive and it is exhausting. Our attention spans are rapidly decreasing over the last few years and are now less than that of a goldfish. This is why a short break from connectedness is able to have such a profound impact on us. In fact, no one really used the phones at all through out our testing. The value lied in the lack of smartphone, the lack of internet, not in what the phone we were going to make would be capable of doing. The more invisible, the better.

We took these learnings into our design of the Light Phone. In thinking about the form factor we asked, “What is it that everyone has with them all of the time?” A credit card or ID. There will always be a place for it and it seemed like the most universally invisible form factor.

We went into Canal Plastics to get some credit card shaped plastic blocks cut out to live with the form factor. They were literally white plastic cards that did nothing, and we fell in love with them. It gave us the idea to make the phone look like a blank white card when off, and to try to make the interface light up through the casing. Conceptually it made sense too, if this phone is designed to be used as little as possible, then the fact there is no screen and that it is blank most of the time is perfect.

We designed the interface to be a second phone, a phone away from your phone. It’s what makes using the Light Phone completely different from a basic flip phone. Flip phones try to do pretty much everything a smartphone does. They have a little html browser, email client, texting, a 2mp camera, and a slew of other not so great features. If you are used to the interface sophistication of modern smart phone operating systems and apps (well sometimes sophisticated) you will find these flip phones incredibly frustrating. They are funny for a second in their nostalgia, but that quickly fades. The Light Phone is the only phone designed to be used as a second phone, to make that experience special.