porcelain keyboard – Ten-Finger-System

The basis of this design was the ten-finger-system, which is based on the standard QWERTY keyboard, which consists of the typewriters since 1868.

Why consisting of Porcelain?

My intension was associated with a "social-emotional aspect." The theory of "SocioDesign" describes this aspect as follows: "As our products are, as we will use them, so we will treat them yourself, and we interact with each other and so we assume their properties." Gerhard Regentahl (1983)

Porcelain basically means as a material basis, that the user which he interacts as the porcelain him pretending in its properties. But it is not only the fragility, which communicates the material, but in the case of the keyboard: to be hygienic, washable, pure, genuine and stable, or the sliding of the finger on the white glazed porcelain. (haptics)


Why the keyboard?

The keyboard is the medium or input device of today's digital world. It is the most widely used electronic everyday object of today's young generation and symbol of global communication, information and networking of people together around the entire globe. It is a product with a lot of time is spent. You spend so much time with it, that alongside and at work, or at leisure, eating and drinking at it. So, hygiene plays an important question in the materiality of a keyboard. The keyboard is a product which has for household a high plastic content and less produced in a sustainable and recycled way. Keyword: plastic and electronic scrap.

The product cycle of a conventional keyboard ends mostly in garbage and is not recycled. The plastic buttons can be harmful to health, as are released by the wear of the plastic, by the finger grease / sweat, individual particles of the actual solid plastic structure will dissolved out. An inhalation, ingestion or diffusion of pollutants is possible.

Draft: Ten-Finger-System

The finger movements, which are based on this system of writing can be found on the keyboard. Each key has a pioneering depression, which leads to the respective finger into its associated keypad. This slavish design of the keys to the ten-finger-sytstem, intended both: Allow a better orientation of the writing finger and make the ten-finger-system, by given configuration of the keys, a better to learn by daily application with the keyboard.

Material aspects:

The properties of the material have been strengthened and consolidated through the decades culturally growing importance. Porcelain has its processing in the best and most stable surface sealing, which may be the product keyboard very useful. Porcelain as product gives people back a piece of identity, which they break down more and more through the professional life. The added value of porcelain-keyboard is the feel of the material. Feeling, touching and sensing are the senses, which enables this product through the porcelain.

Sustainable approach:

My idea was to achieve a sustainable return leading product design a keyboard by porcelain items. Porcelain buttons can, if they are left unprovided, be re-integrated into a new product cycle. The result is a sustainability of the product. The multiple lives of this product can thus be understood as an added value, as it is resource-efficient and produces less waste.

The question was from the beginning: "Is it possible to replace plastic elements of electronic household appliances by porcelain?". From this issue out, I started to think about it, how can I replace certain items by porcelain with a standard keyboard and which parts it makes sense and is technically feasible.

I have worked closely with the porcelain company "Kahla" in Thuringia / Germany together, which has the individual parts porcelain high fired and glazed. Thus I was able to work with porcelain skilled craftsmen, which otherwise only make plates and cups industrially.

During the development process, I have tried to analyze the different directions of movement of the fingers by previous models. From this practical research out various approaches and models have emerged. I have worked with clay, plaster and later with porcelain my models. In addition I have been working with CAD and printed preliminary models in 3D.

At the end of the poress two different designs have emerged. One of it is the draft: "Ten-Finger-System". The draft uses a standard keyboard in which the keys are made of porcelain and each key has a based hollow on the ten-finger-sytsem.

Unfortunately, not yet.