Samsung design executive grabs attention

Samsung Electronics Vice President Lee Hyun-yeul, who is in charge of handling user-experience innovation at Samsung’s handset business, explains the main features of the S6 and S6 Edge at an event titled, “Tasting Night With Galaxy,” at a hotel in Paris, France, last week. / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics

By Kim Yoo-chul

BARCELONA, Spain ― Samsung Electronics’ vice president grabbed attention when she dismissed accusations that the surface design of its S6 smartphone is similar to that of Apple’s, when the Korean IT giant unveiled the new model at its own unpacked event on Sunday.

Her name is Lee Hyun-yeul, a former professor at Boston University in the United States. She was scouted by Samsung as a vice president of user-experience (UX) innovation at its handset division, late last year.

Lee was one of the first three speakers during the event, along with the company’s Executive Vice President Lee Young-hee. The two Lees spoke for 13 of the first 20 minutes of the event.

When Lee Hyun-yeul took the stage and grabbed more attention by talking about improvements to the S6’s surface design and UX changes in fluent English.

“As Samsung is heavily focused on products’ manufacturing, people are worrying about its rigid corporate structure. But Samsung’s decision to let the UX chief Lee talk about changes of the S6 was great,” one reporter from the United States said, adding that Lee Hyun-yeul’s speech was impressive.

Beyond hardware specifications, the S6 runs Android Lollipop, also known as Android 5.0. Samsung usually delivers a lot of added features and software. However, this time around, the company is keeping customizations to a minimum.

The S6 Android Lollipop software features fewer on-screen elements and Samsung claims it is easier to get where you want in fewer steps.

“We wanted to provide a more refined user experience that focuses on simplicity and functionality to go with the S6 and S5 Edge’s new metal and glass designs. So, we designed a much simpler interface as part of an effort to keep to the core essentials of the user experience, keeping things simple, fast and intuitive,” Hyun-yeul said.

She talked a lot about its design philosophy, which has rarely been seen in major Samsung product launching events.

“Our UX design philosophy ultimately seeks to help users create new lifestyles based on meaningful values. We created a new UX design for the S6 and S6 Edge to match the lighter, faster user interface,” the vice president Lee said.

“First of all, we used simple, bright colors to create a fresh new look. Functions in the same category are represented by the same color for a more intuitive experience. We also went for a more stylish, modern look this time. Overall, we want the user experience to be an emotional journey that is fun, easy and reliable,” she stressed.

These are very important moves by Samsung because technology companies in South Korea, as well as those in the Silicon Valley, apparently have gender-related problems, meaning a scarcity of women brings imbalance between males and females.

One clear thing that Samsung is much better at than Apple, is that Samsung is trying hard to seek gender balance by hiring more women and letting women get highlighted at major events such as the S6 unpacked showcase.

Apple has long been criticized for the male-centric nature of its product showcases.

Reports said that at developer conferences since 2007, Apple has featured 57 men and two women as key speakers. Of Apple's 10 top executives, nine are men.