Music Wrap

Design Process

Product Image Definition

In the preliminary stage of developing Music Wrap, we analyzed the results from marketing research that indicated which types of portable speakers customers would like. We focused on the scenarios of outdoor activities and gave portable speakers a new ability, which is accessory! Designer proposed that new design, music wrap, which can be hanged on the user's neck, used as a stand for a cell phone and wound in any shape they want. The most novel function is hanging on the neck. In order to solve problems under this scenario, I had to study ergonomics and design the experiment for testing.

Human Factors and Ergonomics study

Because of Music Wrap's unique feature - wearing, I’m curious about how people wear it, how users feel with it and how they use it. Obviously, I have to firstly consider issues related to human factors, such as weight, length, neck circumference and biomechanics of grip. To explore the best design guidelines, I simulated several possible scenarios of wearing the speakers and proposed some assumed items based on literature review. Those assumed items would be proved and modified with experiment.

First of all, by referring to the data of sexual anthropometrics and the neck circumferences and running pre-test with 20 adults for collecting subjective preferences of length, I defined three different speaker models which length are 60 cm, 65 cm and 70 cm for usability experiment.

Secondly, according to the literature of grip and thumb motion of right hand, I illustrated the different zones of efficiency on the speakers. The pink area means high efficiency, the yellow is middle and the green low. The layout of buttons was defined by the zones and corresponded to the frequency of usage.

Design

Flow design

In the part of UI design, the first challenge is that how to use 3+1 (three control buttons and one power button) buttons to manipulate sophisticated functions, including play and , pause, bluetooth pairing, volume control and answering a call. Therefore, I classified the frequency of easy operation, the function's usage and deliberated flow with blind operating without watching devices. To increase the recognition of each button, I suggest that three buttons should be designed in different shapes h meet the user's mindset of its functions. Therefore, users can recognize buttons without watching in a smooth and intuitive operation flow for the speakers.

The principles

1. The functions of high frequency of use are classified as the first priority. The relevant functions are group together.
2. To avoid the complex manipulation, each physical button can only have two statuses: short press and long press.
3. Matching the most intuitive way, short press, to the first priority functions.
4. Illustrate the flow and evaluate the fluency.

Prototype and Usability Test

In the experiment, I followed previous setting and arrange the experiment to clarify issues related to human factors. In the experiment, the independent variables include:

• lengths of wearing
• widths of tube

According to the results, which include error rate of manipulating and the subjective response, the participants' feedback. I concluded the best wearing speaker design should be:

• length: 60cm
• width: >1.5
• button size: >1cm
• distance between buttons: >1.6cm

Test Result

There are some discoveries during the experiment

• Most users prefer to separate left and right speakers before they use and they adjust the right speaker's length for easer right hand manipulation.
• The shape of area that touches the user's neck should be designed as flat as a pancake to reduce the pressure from weight.

Final Design and Manufactory

By adopting the human factor research and cooperating between ID and UI designers, the discovered issues have been solved to proceed to manufacturing stage.This great design won iF international award and fame in the market.