The DS4800 Series is an innovative bar code scanner for retail and hospitality markets that offers style without compromise. You get elite performance, elegantly crafted — impressive design, innovative technologies and enterprise reliability and functionality.

The DS4800 set out to redefine the bar code scanner user experience. We asked how could we better fit as part of a retailers brand. Along with the form factor, every element of the existing experience was reconsidered including the lights, behaviors, and sounds. The challenge was to not only promote the customers brand, but to improve the value of a product which many customers view as a commodity and create an experience that would surprise and delight customers.

The design team created the DS4800 as part of a concept effort that looked to rejuvenate a portfolio of products, many of which were 5-10 years old. The DS4800 emerged first as a form factor, the sleek arc shape was much simpler than traditional gun shaped scanners but then went further to explore the entire experience. This included how the device would be triggered, the construction and manufacturing processes, and the lights, sounds and behaviors. The goal was to make a scanner that would be both beautiful and challenge assumptions about what a bar code scanner could be.

To first explore the design, appearance models were created to pitch the product to internal stakeholders. When marketing and engineering leadership decided to pass on the concept, it was shown in a private meeting to the president of the company who immediately pushed the project for production. In order to evaluate so many elements of the product design, functional mockups were built starting with a simple Arduino powered mockup that could explore and communicate different behaviors and modify those behaviors on demand. From that exploration, three form factor mockups were built to each explore different combinations of design elements ranging from conservative to wild. Those mockups were then given to cashiers who were brought in to conduct human factors evaluations and understand preferences for each design element.

The rigorous testing allowed for fine tuning the ergonomics, identifying the preferred behaviors, and eliminating extraneous design elements. Once the final concept was defined, manufacturing the product had to overcome several key challenges including shrinking the key components to allow them to fit into the curved design without compromising the shape. The In-Mold Decorated bezel was a key element pushed through to production to allow customers to provide their own logo for the bezel graphics. The design team lead the engineering effort with all parts of the company including quality and service to ensure that the product would meet all the requirements of an enterprise device.

The DS4800 series is meant to be not only a great performing device, but a beautiful object that deserves a place on a retailers counter top, not to be hidden from sight. It is designed to work in conjunction with next generation tablets and Point of Sale devices as well as traditional cash registers. It is meant to provide a differentiated and premium experience in a category of products that has often relied on technical specifications alone to differentiate products. The end goal was to provide delight for the user in a class of products that is often only seen as a commodity.