T H E S T O R Y B E H I N D F O C U S .
T H E M E A N I N G F U L S O U N D S I N O U R L I V E S The sounds are always present in our lives. From our first to our last waking moment of the day, many of them goes unnoticed and influence us.
Sound is important to how people experience and is linked to different places, but they also exist as an often overlooked dimension of exist- ence in the shadow of the visual. What I vision for this thesis is to convey an idea of how people
could interact and experience sound.
H O W C A N W E C U S T O M I Z E
O U R S O U N D E X P E R I E N C E ?
7 6
I N C O L L A B O R A T I O N W I T H
Håkan Lidbo
D I S C O N N E C T E D I N A N O V E R C O N N E C T E D W O R L D
C O N N E C T I N A O V E R C O N N E C T E D W O R L D
T H E C O R E O F M Y T H E S I S
T H E C O R E O F M Y T H E S I S.
In our modern society we’re constantly bombarded with more impressions than we can handle. Everyday we’re exposed to involuntary sounds we either have to endure or mask. We often wish to just shut off our ears, and the moments when we actually want to listen to sounds that makes us feel good, we don’t have the ability to do it due to that all of the sounds in the city blends together.
At the same time noise is intrusively pres- ent, in most cases we hardly notice it;
because it has become a part of our ur- ban culture. A consequence of this is that people are more stressed than ever. How we handle this today is by maximize the volume on our earphones and also by flee- ing to our screens as a tool to manage our stress. And why we do this is to be able to focus on the things that are important for ourselves. But what has happened is that the screens has taken over our lives, and what we think we’re saving in time by looking down on them, we lose in being disconnected from reality, towards our fellows and the moments that’s happening around us.
The core of my thesis work has been to explore the idea of how it could be if we moved our focus from our screens to our ears instead, and to explore how sound could improve our well-being. My mission has been to find innovative ways to give people the freedom to connect/discon- nect themselves from their surrondings.
What if there was a tool that could give you the ability to feel like you suddenly could hear whatever you wanted, how much you wanted and know everything when you wanted? Maybe this would help us find our mindfulness and make our lives less stressful?
T H E S T O R Y B E H I N D F O C U S.
A B S T R A C T
Noise is a form of environmental problem that affects most people in the world. Both our health and our behaviour. Noise is often defined as unwanted sound, but doesn’t necessarily always have to be bad - it’s also good because it gives us information of our environment, indicates danger and makes us concious of certain things. The way how we perceive sound depends entirely on the context we’re in and our relation to the noise source. The sounds that is percieved as noise in one context can therefore be experi- enced as beautiful sound in another.
All unwanted sound that our ears has not built in to filter can cause severe problems both physically and mentally. It feels ex- tremely concerning when looking at the statistics of how big of an impact noise has on humans health, the effects of these and how few existing solutions there is today that actually is sustainable where the user is in control over the sound experience. What’s clear is that noise needs to be taken more seriously in our society. We need to make a change - and we have to do it rapidly, consid- ering that it’s a growing problem due to the everincreasing urbanisation and industriali-
T H E C O R E O F M Y T H E S I S
B A C K G R O U N D
P R O C E S S
C O N C E P T
E X T R A M A T E R I A L
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T A B L E O F C O N T E N T
> I D E N T I F Y I N G C O N C E P T
> E V A L U A T I O N
> I D E A T I O N
> D E F I N I N G
> C O N C L U S I O N
> A E S T H E T I C E X P R E S S I O N
> F O R M
> R E S U L T
> T H E U S E R S S Y S T E M
> A P P
> E A R B U D
> S U M M A R Y
> N O I S E P O L L U T I O N
> E X I S T I N G M E T H O D S
> A U G U M E N T E D A U D I O R E A L I T Y
> F U T U R E O F S O U N D
> S C E N A R I O E V A L U A T I O N
> C R E A T I N G P E R S O N A S / S C E N A R I O S
> D E F I N E S O U N D S
> S Y S T E M E V A L U A T I O N
> T H E S T O R Y A R O U N D F O C U S
> M O D E L M A K I N G
> G E O T A G S O U N D
> T R E N D P R O D U C T D E S I G N
> S P A T I A L A U D I O
> S O U R C E S
sation.But to solve noise is hard because it’s everywhere and has today almost become impossible to escape. The core problem lays in that our hearing isn’t a vouluntary process.
The ability we miss with our hearing skill for our sound experience to be customiz- able is that: We can’t specifically choose which sounds we want to listen to, we can’t choose how much/how little we want to listen to these sounds and we can’t just choose to turn of the sounds we don’t want to listen to.
My project has focused on developing a hu- man centered concept/ a tool that could give the user the ability to customize their own sound experience in different contexts.
The final result and product is about under- standing the subjectivness in sound which purpose has been to personalize the users sound experience through both sound and design. And to show an idea how we in the future could interact and experience sound.
> N O I S E P O L L U T I O N
B A C K G R O U N D .
B A C K G R O U N D > N O I S E P O L L U T I O N
N O I S E P O L L U T I O N *
Noise pollution is a serious and environmen- tal health hazard that affects most people in the world. It’s bad for our health and our well-being but also good because it gives us information of our environment and help us create it and a set of mood. It’s necessary because it can indicate danger and also im- portant in order to make us aware for certain things. Noise is therefore not only noise - It’s always something more than itself. Abstract and at the same time universal, the noise around us provide information and develop networks that are vital to the social and cul- tural processes in the physical environment.
The significance of the concept of noise can therefore at the same time be treated as
‘unwanted’ as ‘required’, depending on the context that’s provided.
W H O ‘ S E F F E C T E D ?
People experience sound differently which depends on several factors such as demo- graphic factors (ex. age, sex, socioeconomic position) and personal or attitudinal fac- tors (ex. noise sensitivity, fear of the noise source, noise that’s related to the individuals lifestyle).
But who’s effected? (It’s important to take time of day and type of activity in consid- eration because it may modify the effect of exposure). Some groups are more vulnerable to noise and more stressed by it. As children spend more time in bed than adults, they are more exposed to night noise. Chronically ill and elderly people are more sensitive to disturbance. Research also shows that intro- verts are more likely to suffer the psychologi- cal effects of noise than extroverts.
But when it comes to noise pollution - Everyone is affected.
E F F E C T S *
Any unwanted sound that our ears have not been built in to filter can cause problems within our body such as: hypertension, high stress levels, tinnitus, hearing loss, sleep disturbances, cardiovascular issues, changes in the immune system and birth defects is examples that have been attributed to noise exposure. And the list goes on and on. Noise also reduces our sensitivity to sounds that our ears pick up unconsciously to regulate our body’s rhythm. Noise has also a neg- ative impact on our cognitive functioning, for example how information is processed, retained and recalled and thereby affect our ability to perform and learn things.
C O R E P R O B L E M
Identified problems with our hearing skill is that:
- We can’t choose which sounds we want to listen to
- We can’t choose how much or how little we want to listen to the sounds
- We can’t choose to turn off our hearing By not having the manual skillset to control over these hearing problems, we compen- sate it by trying to mask the noise with for example: Music. We do this by turning up the volume so much that we end up hurting our ears. Many headphones/earphones today isolate the sound bad aswell, which makes us turn up the volume even more...
P R O C E S S .
E X I S T I N G M E T H O D S *
I did some research of what existing meth- ods there is today to prevent/reduce the noise and if there’s any existing methds that makes it possible for the user to customize their own soundexperience. What I discov- ered was that there’s a couple of existing methods today that can help us to some extend, and in different ways. I listed up pros and cons with them. Down below is the con- clusions I made from it:
Architectural. As individuals, we are incapa- ble of completely changing our environment to eliminate excess noises—such things will need to be left up to government, city plan- ners, etc.
Mask/ noise cancelling. Headphones/ear- phones with noise cancellation are portable which prevents the noise from reach the us- ers ears no matter where, but doesn’t allow him/her to specifically customize the sound experience.
Earplugs. The same goes for earplugs. The problem with these however is that they isolate the sound to much which contributes to a bad sound experience. This is often is caused by bad isolation due to that it can be hard to place them right in the ear. Another problem is that they’re in majority seen as
“ugly” which doesn’t make the user want to wear them in the first place.
Planting plants and trees. This method only reduces the noise on a specific place and you’re still able to hear the noise. Also, it only reduces -10dB.
C H O S E N M E T H O D*
After the conclusions I made, I chose to ex- plore further with the method of mask/noise cancelling and earplugs because they were
the only sustainable methods that gave the user the power to control over their sound experience. The idea of combinding the two methods into one was a interesting idea/
track to explore.
P R O B L E M T O S O L V E
After choosing track, I now felt that I had enough information to be able to sketch a system, so I therefore created a list of de- mands what needs to be solved in order for the user to maintain a good sound experi- ence in its whole. The user should be able to:
- Turn down the volume of the sound he/she don’t want to listen to
- Amplify (and add) the sound he/she would like to listen to
- Sort through the sound and information he/
she would like to listen to E X I S T I N G S Y S T E M S
When I had designed a list of demands I did research if there already was some existing systems today that solved the goals I want- ed to achieve. What I discovered was:
Here One - It’s a pair of earbuds that allows the user to adjust real-world sounds and layer listening.
Google Now - It’s a system that can provide the user with sounds depending on different locations.
Bose - It’s a pair of earphones that takes away noise by noise cancelling technique.
The features they solved was:
A D J U S T I N G R E A L W O R L D S O U N D S L A Y E R E D L I S T E N I N G
N O I S E C A N C E L L I N G P H O N E C A L L S
G E O S P E C I F I C S O U N D S
P R O C E S S > I D E N T I F Y I N G C O N C E P T
Then there was three features on my list od demands that no system on the market today solved which was:
A U G U M E N T E D A U D I O R E A L I T Y D A Y / T I M E B A S E D S O U N D S S P A T I A L A U D I O
M Y U S P
As identified, most of the technique I liked to implement into my system already exist today - but not in the context I had in mind.
In my opinion, and for what my research showed: All of these three systems has to be combined into one in order for the user to have a complete customized and good sound experience. Today, none of the system solves everything - therefore a combination between these would create a totally new sound experience that became my user sell- ing point.
A D J U S T I N G R E A L W O R L D S O U N D S L A Y E R E D L I S T E N I N G
N O I S E C A N C E L L I N G P H O N E C A L L S
G E O S P E C I F I C S O U N D S
A U G U M E N T E D A U D I O R E A L I T Y D A Y / T I M E B A S E D S O U N D S S P A T I A L A U D I O
A U G U M E N T E D A U D I O R E A L I T Y *
Augmented Audio is defined as live audio being modified and/or enhanced by comput- er-generated sensory input i.e. when you lay a digital sound on top of a physical.
H O W ?
By designing a pair of human-centered digital ears and an app that should allow the user to:
- Control the volume of existing and digital sounds (With the help of an equalizer).
- Control over the amount of sounds (by designing a system that only recalls to geo- specified sounds depending on location and time).
- Add digitial sounds on top of the existing sounds (By augumented audio reality).
- Provide contextual sound (through spatial audio).
- Use the earbuds as ordinary earplugs as well, not only as contextual earplugs (by be- ing able to listen to music and to take phone calls.
W H Y ?
A tool that could cancel, reduce, amplify and specifically allow the user to choose which sound he/she would like to hear and not would give the ability for the user to take control over the sound experience. The com- bination between geospecified sounds and the technique of AAR would also provide the user with contextual sounds/information in the right moment of time and place with the help of an app. And to promote the well-be- ing.
F O R W H O ?
Everyone is affected by noise. How we percieve noise dependent on what context we’re in and our realtionship to the noise source. The thought was for my system to work as a platform that could be used in dif-
D O E S N O T E X I S T E X I S T S
18
ferent context for persons.
W H E N ?
Everyday life.
G O A L
The goal with the concept was for it to:
- Improve the users well-being.
- For the user to optimize both time and energy by increasing the amount of steps as possible.
- Strengthen the users relation- ship to sound by controlling spe- cifically over which sounds he/
she wants to hear/not hear.
- To show a possibility how we in the future could interact and experience sound in new ways.
19
F U T U R E O F S O U N D *
Before heading into ideation phase I analyzed the market of future audio and the prediction of future trends we’ll see. These are some of the audio trends I researched more in depth:
Spatial audio, physically tactile sound, mass personalisation, quiet sound, speech recog- nition, speaking out loud, complete silence and microphones that captures their own feedback.
R O U G H C O N C E P T
After I had analyzed the market of future trends and decided the goals and require- ments for my concept - I started to roughly put down the ideas and thoughts I had in mind for it. To work an visualize sound is very hard considering it’s nothing you concrete can put your finger on, but something that is extremly subjective that circuits more around an experience and emotion at the user.
Considering that there was parts in my sys- tem that didn’t exist on the market today, I therefore felt it was extremly important to as fast as possible evaluate if these could work practically and how the experience would be.
So me and my supervisor performed a so called soundwalk.
What I wanted to evaluate was how it would feel to replace ambient city noise with
“beautiful” sounds. The core idea was for sounds to be optional, contextual and allow the user to be in the moment. Therefore a requirement for these sounds was for them to only be unlocked by GPS-position.
The overall idea is for it to be a system that everyone could use and benefit from it. But to be able to go more in depth with the sys- tem (within the timeframe) I chose to zoom in, in this phase of the process by looking on everyday life person between 18-30Y. I also focused more on looking into outdoor city sounds because the noise levels there are
E V A L U A T I O N : S O U N D W A L K *
These soundwalk workshops were highly important in order to refine my idea until it became something bound to be adopted and embraced. I headed down to Stockholm to meet up with my supervisor where we prepared for a so called soundwalk to eval- uate the system. Why it was performed in Stockholm was because I wanted to evaluate it as near reality as possible. Stockhom was a perfect environment to test the system due to it’s city noise, social life and accurate personas.
The purpose with the soundwalk was to get a sense of how the user would feel when using this kind of system and what pros and cons there might be. Especially to evaluate how it would feel to block out all the exist- ing sound and replace it with digital sounds considering that there’s no system like that today.
Briefly how it was performed: It was a four minute soundwalk between Slottsbacken and Kungsträdgården in Stockholm. The test persons was told to wear a pair of earphones underneath a pair of ear protection to achieve the noise cancellation and in order to simu- late the AAR feeling the best as possible.
A soundtrack recorded in a certain pace in four minutes time, was played in the users ears as they synchronized it by walking in the same pace as the recording (in order for simulate the experience of the sounds being geotagged/contextual/momentual with the walk). The sounds was a mixture between the sound I in advanced had recorded on the exact same environment and time as the soundwalk took place, and some digital sounds on top of it. I also moderated some of the existing sounds by cancelling some.
For example sounds of: Attraction tips, pe- destrian street indication, noise cancellation-
P R O C E S S > E V A L U A T I O N
23 22
of traffic, stronger nature sounds, informa- tion layer about time table for buses.
K E Y F I N D I N G S
“I T W A S V E R Y C A L M I N G ”. After the soundwalk, the most common comment from the test users was about recreational values. All of the user were amazed over the impact of how calming the sound experience were for them and that it almost felt like an audio guide at a museum.
“I T M A D E Y O U N O T T O T A K E U P Y O U R P H O N E, B U T J U S T B E I N T H E M O M E N T A N D M A K E D E C I S I O N S I N R E A L
- T I M E”. The second most common comment
was how surprised they were on their reac- tion how they started to react and connect more with the environment due to that the sounds became stronger with this system.
And how they became more in the moment and was taking it slower.
“I T C O U L D B E A G R E A T E X P L O R A T I O N T O O L A S W E L L A S I T C O U L D E A S E M Y E V E R Y D A Y L I F E “ Some of the users saw that this could become a great exploration tool for those who are new in a town. Others also saw it as a time-saving tool.
The overall feeling everyone had was that Focus pushed you to have a better listening to your surrondings and helped you focus.
Everyone of the test persons saw potential- how the system could work as a tool to ease everyday life. So after the soundwalk I could confirm that my thesis about the experience was confirmed.
The test users opinions was important for be to refine the system to something human- centered. The next step in the process was now to evaluate the system and define it’s functions more clearly.
P R O C E S S > I D E A T I O N
S Y S T E M E V A L U A T I O N *
F U T U R E V S . R E A L I T Y . What I realised in my eval- uation and after my discussions with my su- pervisors was that the system was about to take a direction that I either liked or agreed with the USP I had wrote down earlier.
I felt that the system had becomed to au- tomaised that circuited around a machine listening system that could provide the user with different sound suggestions depending on what it had learned over time with the user. The whole concept became to feel all to hypotetic and hard to evaluate. I evalu- ated my concept with a guy from Spotify that works with this field and he confirmed that this was the new step in the future of sound, but that it will take a couple of years before it’s well-functioning and user-centered enough for it to be adopted.
I also experienced that the system had lost it’s core idea for it to be a platform that could work in different contexts. Now it seemed like the only thing it was meant to to was protect the user against various dangerous sound levels. The biggest problem however
T H E S T O R Y A R O U N D F O C U S *
After I chose the path of doing the system of reality, I finally had all pieces and material I needed to start building the story around Focus.
* S Y S T E M E V A L U A T I O N
* T H E S T O R Y A R O U N D F O C U S
Starting
Pairing Identifying location Identifying
time/day Synchronizing w/ other apps
Moments Focus user
Geotagger (company or private person)
Import a new moment from Focus store
Profile
Settings Private /Public
Startpage
What’s close?
Home
Home
Help?
Choose a moment or combine+
different moments from the library
( (
Geotag Moment
Indoor
(beacon) Static geotag:
Define zone
Moveable geotag:
Define static start and end point Outdoor
(map)
Name the moment.
Then add digital sounds or a preset EQ for
the moment
was that the system circuited around the ex- isting processed sound and that I almost lost the whole AAR concept with digital sound.
So before refining the concept I had to find my way back to my core idea that some- where was lost along the way. The first step was not to choose if I wanted to do a futuris- tic conept or a realistic manual concept.
R E F I N E M E N T S Y S T E M
R E A L I T Y . I choose to go with the manual
concept considering it felt the most challeng- ing and rewarding to work with. A important insight in my evaluation was to not underes- timate the users own ability to choose which sounds one wants to hear/not hear, and that a system never can know the user better than the user his/herself. So the difference between the new and the old system was that the new system, the user had the full control over the sound experience.
To have the ability to process sound is very important for the user in it’s whole to be able to customize the sound experience. So what I realised was the this part need to be imple-
System before evaluation:
System after evaluation:
mented and to co-exist with the “new sys- tem” in order for it to be human centered.
Because of the time limitations I chose to mostly focus on the AAR method. This was the result:
D E F I N E U S E R S
Now when I had identified the system, the question was: Who will benefit from it?
Though everyone is involved when it comes to being exposed to noise pollution. Noise is particulary evident outdoor because you’re the most vulnerable and in least control over the sounds then. Especially people in bigger cities - which is why I choose to examine that environment more.
I also wanted to look more in depth of some specific people and groups that’s being more exposed/vulnerable to noise in their everyday life, than the average person. My thought behind it was, If I could solve a solution for the extreme users, then it would nearly certainly work for the majority of others. I believe, without understanding what people on the far reaches of your solution need, you’ll never arrive at solutions that can work for everyone. So after the soundwalk I tried to define the users of people who will be touched by my design to achieve my goal
“Design for all”.
First off, I defined my extreme users: Work- ers and students, people with hearing loss, visually impaired, physical impaired, people who suffer tinnitus, tourists, people out- door. Then I added people/groups who are peripherally relevant or associated with this audience, the mainstream users: Teachers, co-workers, friends, family, doctors, elderly, handicapped, people that’s exposed for traf- fic, hikers, jogers m.m.
S C E N A R I O E V A L U A T I O N : W O R K S H O P *
Now when I had defined my users, the next step in my process was to interview both some extreme users and mainstream users to evaluate my more refined concept against them - So I hosted a workshop. I believed it was important to talk to both extreme users
and mainstream users. My beliefs by talking to extreme users was that it could spark my creativity by exposing user cases, hacks, and design opportunities that I’d maybe never had imagined and overlooked.
D E F I N I N G C O N T E X T . The purpose was also in this workshop to look for real scenarios/
stories where my system could ease their everyday life. This was important so I later on could create realistic personas for my audi- ence to relate to and sell the relevance and benefits of using the system of Focus.
So my test users assignment for my sce- nario evaluation was to invite them to share their own stories and describe a day in their everyday life for me to partly capture quotes, the person’s life history, household details, aspirations, barriers etc. But also to identify the contexts, flaws and potential features.
D E F I N I N G F E A T U R E S . After the workshop I could see more clearly and separate which fea- tures to implement with this system and what not after observing the users daily rou- tines/ behaviour. Before the workshop it was
L I S T E N S T O R A D I O
Walk to place and take a cup of coffee.
Same.
Y O G A Checking what’s happened on her phone.
Exposed to much noise from classmates, print-
ers and such. Doesn’t want to cancel noise completely.
Wants background sounds but don’t want to distinguish conversations etc.
Same.
06.30
09.00
17.00 - 20.00 walk from school
desktop work/
lecture
desktop work/
Lecture
B R E A K F A S T
break
to home Eat breakfast
Shower
Wants to cancel noise completely. Wants to hear
own conversation but don’t miss out on conversations in the same context. (Don’t care what happens in the other part
of the studio.
Talk in mobile phone Listen to podcast
Computer Cook dinner Draw/paint Watch tv-series Listen to podcast Go out for a walk Work
stressed social
M U S I C
G E T D R E S S E D P A C K T H I N G S
12.00
07.30 08.00-09.00
23.00 - 00.00 W A L K T O S C H O O L
lunch
to city
sleep mode Is exposed to traffic sounds
etc. that kills her mood.
Compromise noise with increasing music volume.
Cooks/ heats food.
Almost feel forced to be social in the kitchen (but doesn’t always
feel like it).
Drink beer Excersise (Cinema) (Event)
Don’t want to hear the tinnitus beeps.
Wants to listen to podcast so she can fall
asleep easier.
W A K I N G U P
D I S T A N C E F R O M E N T R A N C E T O D E S K T O P
27 26
down some features and refine the system was good in order to make it more accu- rate and a good step in the way of finding my core feature. The most interesting part I discovered from the workshop was how big of an impact our mentally state has on how sound affect us, and how dependent it is with our emotional state how we percieve sounds in different contexts.
C R E A T I N G P E R S O N A S / S C E N A R I O S *
After the evaluation, I started to create per- sonas around the facts that I gathered from my workshop. My test users was the most important source to push my project for- ward. By keeping them in the center of my project throughout the project and integrat- ing their feedback, I could define the most essential elements that was important for my human-centered design of a system. And by learning from them and showing what I made and found out kept me improving the concept.
What I felt was most important when creat- ing the personas, was to show a versatility of people and personalities in the usage scenarios to show the audience how much context matters and how flexible the system is. The story behind the scenarios I built my personas around was all based on the core feature of my USP: How we would like to replace the annoying sound from the city with sound that we want to focus on: Either with what we define as nice sounds and/or sounds that’s informative. Which both can be existing sounds but also digital. My different personas and personalities ended up in one fictional character “Lisa” in order for the au- dience to follow the Focus usage of scenario easier.
D E F I N I N G S O U N D S * Most of our day we would like to just reduce/mask sound when being surronded by people and annoying ambient
sounds of the city ex. On contructions and in public places such as the co-woorkers, subways m.m. How we want to mask these is by replacing them with nice sounds that for us is recreational. Recreational could be ex. By amplifying nature sound such as bird song and the water or ex. Capturing an at- mosphere/mood, like the sound of a cafée.
(What we define as annoying sound and nice sound is subjective and highly individual for us, therefore these scenarios above is just examples.) Anyhow, It’s important to find those moments of recreation in our lives.
C O N C E P T O V E R V I E W
T A R G E T G R O U P. Everyday user
E Q U I P M E N T R E Q U I R E D F O R F O C U S U S E R S. A smart- phone, earbuds and an app. It’s the phone that provides all data such as wi-fi and GPS.
So what it comes down to is that the user has to have the phone with him/her in order for the earbud to work.
My believes is that the phone is not going to be replaced in the near future, and it would be dumb not to take advantage of it. In Focus case, to use the functionality that’s in the phone, would mean that you could mini- mize the unit price and make the production easier.
( E Q U I P M E N T F O R G E O T A G G E R S ).
Focus software that allows companies and private users to geospecific place out sounds. (And a beacon in order to the geotag sounds indoors).
F O C U S F E A T U R E S. The user can control over No.1 The volume of both real world sounds and digital sounds by amplifying, reducing and/or cancel the sound. No.2 The user can also control over what specific sound he/she would like to hear by choosing“moments”.
Both No.1 and No.2 needs to coexist in order for the user to have a good sound experi- ence.
P R O C E S S > D E F I N I N G
* C R E A T I N G P E R S O N A S / S C E N A R I O S *
* D E F I N I N G S O U N D S *
P R O C E S S > C O N C L U S I O N
C O N C L U S I O N C O N C E P T : E Q U A L I Z E R A N D G E O S P E C I F I E D S O U N D S
E Q U A L I Z E R . The overall conclusion from my research,for the user to have a good sound experience, isn’t totally just about improving our hearing skill by creating a tool that gives the user to manually control over the volume and specific sounds he/she would like to hear/not hear and which sound to control.
(Which I thought would be enough in the beginning).
G E O S P E C I F I E D S O U N D S . To actually create a sus- tainable solution of experiencing what we define as a good sound environment comes hand in hand with a requirement of a good well-being as well that isn’t just necesseraliy affected by the sound itself.
But by creating a optional tool where the user doesn’t have to feel forced by: Having to max the volume of their Spotify playlist, to spend plenty of hours on just googling, do- ing research, reading reviews and compare options on ex. tripadvisor etc. would not only save them time and energy, it would benefit for a better well-being.
An AAR tool wouldn’t just give the user the possibility to feel good in the reality context it could make him/her feel good when not having the possibility to be in the context as well. To choose which informative sounds he/she would like to listen to, could mean a tool for independency, comfortability and safety for some. But it could also work as a explorative tool for the ones who would like to discover his/her environment. No matter which purpose: It will allow the user to live in the present > stress less and having the free choice of connecting and/or disconnecting to reality.
P E R S O N A L I Z E D . S U S T A I N A B L E .
L I F E S T Y L E P R O D U C T . F A S H I O N A B L E .
A T T I T U D E .
H U M A N - C E N T E R E D . Values
P R O C E S S > A E S T H E T I C E X P R E S S I O N
31
M I N I M A L I S T I C / S L E E K A T T E N T I O N T O D E T A I L S . H U M A N - C E N T E R E D . F O C U S E D .
F O R M F O L L O W S F U N C T I O N . L A S T I N G / T I M E L E S S .
Form
30
H U M A N - C E N T E R E D . P E R S O N A L I Z E D . D U R A B L E . E X C L U S I V E .
L I G H T & C O M F O R T A B L E .
S O U N D R E C O G N I T I O N . C H A R G I N G - I N D U C T I O N . W I R E L E S S .
T O U C H .
A A R / L A Y E R E D L I S T E N I N G
M I N I M A L I S T I C . S E A M L E S S .
S I M P L E / I N T U A T I V E .
R E D A C C E N T M O N O C H R O M E Construction,
material
& finish
UX
UI
Color
P R O P O R T I O N S. For a unique approach I believed it was important for the earbud not to be recognizable as an earphone nor an earplug or something inbetween them. Therefore the proportions played a huge role for the expression of Focus as a product. I decided to rather exaggarate it in size by making it bigger. So the requirement I set was that it should be big but slim. I also thought that this approach suited well with the values I wanted to achieve with the product by it hav- ing attitude. So the aesthetic goal I set for Focus was for it to become a lifestyle prod- uct, seen as an accessory in the ear.
C L A Y. To find the right proportions in consid-
erations of not making it to big and heavy within the ear, and the right proportions in distance between the outer ear and ear canal, I dissected x-amount of earphones to get some sort of a middle value. I then took the earphones outershape and builded clay upon it, to really test how big I could do the cylindric outer shape that I had in mind.
When I had defined the components meas- urements within Focus, I could also calculate how slim I could make it. To go up in size had it’s benefits. It allowed Focus to have a bigger battery which meant longer battery length and therefore less frequent charging time. But it was really a subtle limit how far you could go up in size before it became a ergonomic problem.
P R O C E S S > F O R M
35 34
3 D - P R I N T. When I had finished up measuring I
started to sketch/CAD and go more in detail with the proportions and material meetings.
I did a couple of 3D-prints in different sizes, shapes of the earbuds bodies, shells, tilts and earplugs to evaluate it against the real ear. By the 3D-prints I also easier could take decisions of which forms and sizes that was best for every part.
What I discovered was that I could keep the body of the earbuds size and the other forms I had created. The only thing that had to be adjusted to maintain a good fit for the earbuds to be placed in the ear was the tilts length. What had to be done was to make extra sizes of them. I believe the reason why everything was so successfull on the first at- tempt was because of all of the hours spent just by measuring and studying different ex- isting earbuds distances, material meetings and shapes.
P R O C E S S > F O R M
R E S U L T
M O D E L M A K I N G *
E A R B U D S B O D Y. Metal milling machine and lathe to create splitlines and polish.
M E T A L S H E L L S. Lathe
S H E L L S + U S B + C A S E. 3D-print, plastic.
E A R P L U G S. 3D-print, silicon.
P A C K A G I N G. 300g paper, silkpaper, chrome sticker.
I N S T R U C T I O N F O L D E R. 50g paper.
C O R D. Bought polyester ribbon
M I C. Bought fabric
S T I C K E R S. Bought sticker symbols to earbud, case and packaging.
C O N C E P T .
42
C O N C E P T > T H E U S E R S S Y S T E M
S Y S T E M E A R B U D S A P P
S Y N C R O N I Z E S W I T H Y O U R O T H E R A P P S
Ex. Google maps, Spotify, your calender m.m.
P R O C E S S I N G R E A L - W O R L D S O U N D
The mics on the earbuds records and process the re- al-world sound in order for the user to modify the volume of it with the help of Focus app.
Thereafter the modified sound plays through the speakers.
R E S P O N D S T O G E O T A G G E D S O U N D
The geotagged sounds can only be unlocked when the system senses that the user is within or nearby a geospec- ified zone by the GPS in the users smartphone.
S P A T I A L A U D I O
The HTFR algorithm within Focus makes it possible for the user to experience spatial audio (sound that appears to come from a specific location) which makes the sound contextual.
3 D C O M P A S S
The magnetometer (3D com- pass/accelerometer in one) makes it possible for the sys- tem to identify the spatiality of the users position.
The system responds when the user asks something verbally.
M O M E N T S
The core idea with Focus is for the user to customize his/her sound experience by choosing and/or combining different “moments”.
N O . 1 Through moments, the user can control over the volume of both real-world sounds and digital sounds.
N O . 2 Through moments, the user can also control what specific sound he/she would like to hear.
S P E E C H R E C O G N I T I O N
43
C O N T R O L L I N G V O L U M E
The user can control the volume of both real world sounds and digital sounds by am- plifying, reducing and/or cancel the sound through equalizers.
E X I S T I N G S O U N D. Important to mention is that (with this concept) it’s not possible for the user to specifically pick out sounds he/she would like to adjust the volume on. What’s possible is to control the real world sounds by an equalizer: High, mid, bass. In other words the user can only adjust different frequences to manipulate the sound experi- ence.
D I G I T A L S O U N D. It’s possible to add endless amount of digital sounds since they are pre- set EQ:s.
G E O T A G G I N G S O U N D S *
W H A T ? I’ve designed a system that builds
around a future society where private users and companies together has mapped out ge- otagged and geospecific timebased sounds on different locations and therefore created a database (a sound library) for the Focus us- ers to access through an app in their smart- phone.
W H Y ? The user can thereafter download these
contextual soundfiles (something I call mo- ments) depending on desire. With these moments, the user can take control over the exposure of information feed.
Focus is a user-friendly system which pur- pose is to ease the users everyday life and give the possibility for him/her to avoid combining the cluster of apps we have today to handle our noise and stress and all the steps in them in order to experience a good daily life and sound environment to a better well-being.
H O W ?
The idea is for the moment only to be un- locked/actived when the user is within a certain geotaged zone.
* G E O T A G G I N G S O U N D S
I N T E R F A C E
F O R M L A N G U A G E. I wanted the feeling of Focus to be feel uniformed and recognized with the rest of the Focus kit. I wanted to keep the sleek apperance, minimalism and the atti- tude in the app. It was also important for me to design it as a lifestyle product and not a
“boring” well-being app. What I tried was to achieve the feeling of the interface being airy and nice to look at.
C O L O R S. I kept the base color very cold and
neutral and spiced it up with carefully se- lected bright red accents to give that right
amount of attitude. I tried to capture the aluminium from the earbuds in the interface as well as the contrasts.
U S E R - F R I E N D L Y A N D I N T U A T I V E. The most impor- tant aspect with the app was to make it as simple and intuative as possible i.e. Both by understanding how to navigate in the menus and chose options but also through readabil- ity.
I N T E R F A C E. The system is the same, but the
interface would look different for visually impaired.
C O N C E P T > A P P
W H I T E. Is the color that indi- cates where you can press for an action.
L I G H T G R E Y. Is just the overall color in order for the app to feel light. It’s a neutral color which makes the readability good.
D A R K G R E Y. Is the neutral overall color for the symbols and texts.
R E D. Is the color that in- dicates if something has happenes/ happened.
C O N C E P T > A P P > M O M E N T S
The whole system and app is based around
“Moments”. “Moments” is contextual soundfiles that is geotaged. You could de- scribe them as preset scenes that the user can choose to activate in advance through the Focus app in order to take control of what he/she wants to listen/not listen to.
The user can customize his/her sound expe- rience by chosing what/which moment(s) to activate/deactivate but also combine them.
And as mentioned before, the unique thing with moments is that they only activates when being within a certain geotaged zone/
context, thereof the reason behind the name.
What the moments does is to give the user a tool and the ability to be in control over his/her sound environment. To not be over- whelmed by all the sounds and information we’re constantly being exposed to. Mo- ments encourages the user to live more in the present.
M O M E N T S
Contextual soundfiles that is geotagged and only activates when the user is within the specific zone.
In the app the user can get an overview of which moment(s) he/she would like to activate from their moment library.
