Given an extremely short timeline that totaled 8 months, my small team was able to turn around a rather large body of work which included:
> A custom OOBE (Out-of-Box Experience) and boot animation
> Dynamic Live Wallpaper with parallax effects
> Complete visual and some structural overhaul of the Operating System
> Custom applications for the photo gallery, camera, MyDell, and screen casting
The custom out of box experience was deliberately shortened and streamlined to allow users access to their tablet faster.
Parallax Live Wallpapers
One of my favorite details of the overall design was the creation of a set of live wallpapers for the device. To create these, I led a team of photographers on several photo shoots in both Texas and New Mexico. The final panoramic shots were meticulously deconstructed and turned into layers in Photoshop which allowed for a parallax effect once implemented on the devices. Tilting your tablet one direction or another would appear to change your perspective in the image as individual foreground elements shifted at a different rate from the mid-ground or background layers.
Custom Android OS
Creating a custom Android operating system was no small feat either. We adjusted the backgrounds and fonts for all of the system applications and settings screens, created custom icons for all Dell related apps, and even created a custom drawer component that appeared by swiping down on the tablet.
Example Stylized OS Screen
Custom Action Tray
Custom Icons - Camera, Photo Gallery, Dell Cast & My Dell
Photo Gallery and Camera Applications
The most advanced feature on the new tablet centered around Intel's RealSense cameras which captured 3 dimensional information for use in advanced photo editing and gave users the ability to measure distances or area on photos taken with the device. All of this was packed into what at the time was the world's thinnest tablet at just 6mm thick.
Utilizing this new technology led to the creation of a custom camera application as well as a deep photo gallery tool which offered some really cool functionality such as measuring the size of a child when taking their picture. Our use cases were centered around the architecture and interior design industries however the technology ultimately was unable to fully live up the hype and only offered about a 70% accuracy instead of the original promised 99% or higher.
To accompany and enable some of the advanced photo editing, we created a custom camera application to make use of RealSense technology. Below are a few screen captures of the functionality including refocus, and warnings if any of the cameras were obstructed.
Overall, while the project was a success, Dell ultimately decided to not participate in the Android space at this level and cut the funding for the marketing budget. We were still able to deliver one of the coolest tablets on the market.
