Samsung Gear IconX

As a Senior Interaction Designer working on Samsung's Gear Icon X earbud headphones, I created prototypes, defined touch based interactions, developed the audio UI, and created specifications for lighting feedback. I also collaborated with industrial designers on ergonomic studies of ears.

https://news.samsung.com/global/interview-how-the-gear-iconx-got-its-fitting-design

The Challenge

Design a truly wireless Bluetooth headphone with heart rate monitoring

As Senior Interaction Designer I...

Organized hackathon resulting in key insights that helped to inspire this product
Performed ergonomic, tech and experiential research
Created audio+touch interaction prototypes in Noodl
Recorded voice talent
Created user flow and wireframe documentation
Shipped Gear Icon X in August 2016

Research

Studied audiology and participated in a hearing aid evaluation to better understand the process of tuning and fitting earbuds.

Planning

Introduced a Scrum process to support visibility and tracking. 

Software

To validate and showcase design ideas, I white-boarded interaction concepts and used those to build audio and touch-based interaction prototypes in Noodl.  Wit.ai was the preferred speech recognition platform for this prototype although its usage was deprioritized in favor of robust documentation.

Hardware

Our industrial designers were struggling with the ergonomic fit for the inner ear, so I created several in-ear molds with polycaprolactone, followed by a study of ear gel comfort.  The in-ear molds and findings informed changes to the hardware design that enabled a great fit.