1 Ainamo, A. and M. Pantzar (2000): "Design for the Information Society: What Can We Learn from the Nokia Experience". The Design Journal, 3 (2), 15-26 DESIGN FOR THE INFORMATION SOCIETY: WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE NOKIA EXPERIENCE? Antti Ainamo and Mika Pantzar Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration Traditionally, producers faced a binary choice when channeling new technologies into consumers’ everyday lives. They pushed new science-based technology or adapted to often unimaginative market pull. The former isolated design from consum- ers, the latter from technology. The emerging information society aggravates the tra- ditional trade-off into a dilemma. Many consumers fail to sufficiently comprehend new information technologies to meaningfully experience them, or to demand any- thing else from them. This article explores how Nokia, the world’s leading producer of mobile phones, channels new technologies into the everyday lives of consumers. Interaction with consumers is a driver of design at Nokia. Nokia mixes and matches diverse new technologies with consumer groups according to each group’s capacity to comprehend and experience these new technologies. We propose that Nokia’s heu- ristic rules about organization of interaction with consumers may generalize beyond Nokia. I N T R O D U CT I O N How ought producers to channel new technologies into the everyday lives of consum- ers to bring about the information society? Nokia, the world leader in “mobile” or cel- lular phones, appears to present an example worth following. Nokia successfully channels new technologies into superior design mobile phones, which permeates con- sumers’ everyday lives. With its large share of the rapidly expanding global mobile phone market, Nokia has growing experience of conducting a revolution in consumer lifestyles. How does Nokia do it? How does it conduct its revolution in consumer life- styles? In this article, the authors blend three literatures: forecasts of the emerging in- formation society, product design and development, and the organization of experi- ence. They document the Nokia experience to identify heuristic rules that form its principles in mobile phone design. They interpret them in terms of the literature to conclude how they extend beyond Nokia. THE INFORMATION SOCIETY AND DESIGN AT NOKIA New technologies diffuse science-based benefits of computers and telephony, which were earlier reserved for “high-tech” and large businesses, into small businesses and consumer households (Castells, 1996). In the emerging “information society” (Bell, 1999), consumers store, transmit and make extensive use of knowledge in a digital form. Whereas the infrastructure of the industrial society was “transportation” (rail- roads, highways etc) the infrastructure of the new information society is “communica-