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est. 3-5 min read
Spatial Experience
Co-Design
User Research
Iterative Design
Advanced Prototyping
Usability Testing
A project sponsored by
Live music, fully unleashed in your space.
Made for your space, and built to move you.
SonySphere
Your front row ticket just got a whole lot closer
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Overview
Before we jump in..
Skills
Interaction Design
Co-Design
User Research
Iterative Design
Spatial Experience Design
Advanced Prototyping
Usability Testing
Project timeline
December 2023 - June 2024
Stakeholders
Sony Product Planning Team
Sony Human Factor Engineering Team
Team
Dave Cai - UX Designer, Prototyping Specialist (Me)
Amodini Khade - UX Researcher
Marianna Nam - UX Generalist, Product Manager
Winnie Hou - UX Designer
Tracy Barnes - Human Factor Engineer, Advisor
Marvin Demerchant - Human Factor Engineer, Advisor
Contribution
Conducted user research, led competitor analyses, and distilled key data points into actionable insights that shaped our design direction.
Led the UX design process and engineered advanced prototypes, transforming a futuristic tech concept into a tangible, interactive experience.
Introduced the solution to stakeholders, fielded their questions, and ensured alignment on the project’s vision and potential.
Status
Presented research findings and interactive prototype to Sony’s Product Planning teams in the US and Japan, gathered cross-regional feedback informing our next iteration.
Additionally, the team compiled all key insights, design rationale, and solution details into comprehensive documentation shared with stakeholders for a clear, unified understanding of the project’s potential.
quick glance at How the solution solve users' problems?
Case Study • Meet Elena
Elena is a huge Taylor Swift fan who’s been following her music career since the beginning.
See how SonySphere helps Elena and her friends feel like they’re a part of the Eras Tour performance, even from home.
👩🏻💻
Elena’s painpoint #1
Scarce Ticket
“As a Swiftie, I was furious when my presale code got rejected and I was stuck in a crashed Ticketmaster queue, surrounded by bots and scalpers. It’s maddening that millions of us fans ticketless.”
Elena is disappointed that she could not get tickets to the Taylor Swift concert. She wanted to experience the concert in-person along with her friends.
Image: The Michigan Daily
🎫
With sonysphere
Easily Get the “Ticket” at a Fraction of Price
Elena skips the headaches of traditional ticketing. No lines, no scalpers, no hidden fees. With just a few taps on the SonySphere App, she can buy a single-event ticket or subscribe to the SonySphere Event Pass, all while saving time and money.
🤦🏻♀️
Elena’s painpoint #2
Compromised Views Causing Letdown Experience
“As a 5-foot-tall person, I’m stuck at concerts staring at the floor or someone’s phone screen, unable to see the stage, even pushed by people. It’s frustrating to pay the same price for a ticket but get shoved around and blocked by taller people, it’s like a nightmare”
Elena often felt crushed at the concert as taller fans blocked her view, leaving her staring at the floor or phone screens instead of the stage. Despite her excitement and full ticket price, the experience fell flat, overshadowed by her height disadvantage.
🏠
SOLUTION
Front-row novel experiences
effortlessly at-home
Elena’s friend introduces her to SonySphere which creates unique interactive experiences for at-home audiences to augment their live music experience.
Now Elena can immerse herself in Taylor Swift’s music from the comfort of her home.
😪
Elena’s painpoint #3
Bland, Disconnected Online Live Music Experience
“I’m out here, tryna feel something, but it’s just me, my crusty laptop, and a weird vibe ... it’s all fake, laggy streams, awkward chat boxes spamming “WOOOO,” and a screen that’s got zero soul. I’m over it. ”
Elena finds most online live music events are disappointing with disengagement with the stage, laggy streams and clunky chats, leaving her detached and craving the real deal.
Image Generated by “Grok” AI
🔮️
SOLUTION
Transport to Immersive Worlds with Besties
With SonySphere, Elena can enjoy custom-made, artist-curated visuals and interactions that elevate her favorite artist’s performance.
Her apartment can transform into different music worlds that she can explore while staying connected with her friends and physical surroundings.
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Problem Space
Hello,
Immersion.
What we trying to figure out
The Background
Building an innovative solution on where immersive spatial technology & home entertainment intersected
The team is in partnership with Sony to explore the next generation of home entertainment experiences that consider the role of augmented reality and spatial computing.
Sony explicitly asked the team to construct a solution besides gaming, and it would be a bonus if the design solution can incorporated with the existing Sony product lineup in some extent.
Sony stated that the project is a “blue-sky project”, in which the team is encouraged to think outside of current implications of spatial technologies and build beyond technical limits, but the team needs to take the product-market-fit of the solution into account.
How we set the scope
The How
We scoped our solution space to center on creating augmented live music experiences for at-home audiences.
The stakeholder (Sony) kept the scope of the project open for the team to self-define within spatial computing & home entertainment fields.
Through research, the team found multiple market research reports that revealed an upwards trend in demand for virtual live events, with online audiences growing exponentially particularly for music events like concerts and festivals.
In an effort to bridge an identified business opportunity with user needs, our project aims to identify ways to leverage spatial computing to create immersive and connected live music experiences for at-home audiences.
More on the scoping process
Why We See the Potential
The Why
A booming industry that craves for more innovation to generate more revenue & profit.
10-20x’s
larger online audience for Coachella music festival
25%
survey respondents interested in online live music events
Whether it’s rising prices, scarcity of tickets, or logistical burdens, many music fans around the world face a number of challenges that may prevent them from seeing their favorite artists’ live.
This may explain the increasing online viewership on music event livestreams, such as Coachella which has recently seen 10 to 20 times more people in their remote audience than at the actual festival.
Despite this exponential growth, the way we consume live music at home has remained largely unchanged for many years and can feel quite static and distant in comparison to the immersive shared experience of attending in-person.
This is precisely where our team identified immense untapped potential for spatial computing to transform live music experiences for the at-home audience.
Who are the target users
The Who
Music enthusiasts who want to experience the immersiveness of live events at the comfort of their places.
🤏
user painpoint #1
Events Availability
Artists can’t perform everywhere, and not all fans live in cities with easy access to live shows, making it hard for many to experience live music locally.
💸
user painpoint #2
Unaffordable Ticket Price
Many fans are priced out of live music experiences due to unreasonably high and unaffordable ticket costs.
🤯
user painpoint #3
Maze of Logistics
Planning to attend a live music event often involves navigating a maze of logistics: transportation, parking, venue rules, hydration, accessibility, and more, that can make the experience feel overwhelming before it even begins.
🎫
user painpoint #4
Bad Experience During Event
Even after securing tickets, live music experiences can be frustrating due to poor sound, overcrowding, bad logistics, or an unwelcoming environment.
Illustrations created by ChatGPT
Going to a live music event is an exciting experience, but several main obstacles stop people from enjoying live music events in real life.
How Do We Shape Tomorrow’s At-Home Entertainment?
The Process
An iterative user-centered journey from problem space to final showcase
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Identify user Pinpoints & Needs through Research
Peeking
Under the Hood
📚
Literature Review
We explored databases such as ACM libraries, online articles, and Reddit threads.
We used our research questions to guide our literature review.
We asked specific questions under three broad categories of user perception of AR/VR, social experiences, and home entertainment.
🔬
Competitor Analysis
The team conducted a competitor analysis that probed into a spectrum of entertainment electronics and Extended Reality (XR) products by evaluating the immersiveness, real-world interactivity, user pain points, value proposition, and market fit.
This comprehensive exploration featured products from standalone XR headsets and VR gaming head-mounted displays (HMDs) to AR & MR glasses across consumer and industrial landscapes.
10 Interviews
We conducted semi-structured interviews with 10 participants from diverse demographics, a range of professional experience, and varying levels of familiarity with AR/VR.
For recruitment, we published a pre-interview questionnaire survey on multiple platforms such as Slack and Reddit. The goal of the survey was to understand user habits and preferences about live music events and home entertainment.
This context helped us while interviewing our participants. We received 300+ responses and narrowed our interview participant list to 10 participants representing diverse backgrounds.
3 Expert Interviews
We talked to 3 experts: a music industry startup founder, an emerging music artist, and an AR/VR researcher.
Expert interviews helped us understand different aspects of the problem space that user research on audiences alone did not uncover.
These included understanding the artist's approach to create novelty in their performance and leading with design principles when designing for spatial experience.
How did we declutters raw research notes into clear themes?
Distilling insights
The team used Affinity Mapping on white board to find common themes that was captured in interviews such as user quotes, notes, and observations.
By doing this, the team was able to spot patterns, hidden connections, and identify overarching insights more clearly.
The team using affinity mapping on whiteboard to distill research insights
Competitor Analysis Mapping & Feature Comparison
What do users care the most when it comes to spatial reality?
Key Insights
From analyzing and connecting the findings across all of our research methods, we drew the following 3 major insights from our research.
research Insight #1 - Novelty
Novelty is the key to making remote live music experiences enticing
The energy and atmosphere at an in-person live music event play a large part in making the experience enjoyable and memorable.
Given that these attributes of live music events cannot necessarily be replicated in remote settings, there’s a need to determine what can make live music at home feel special in its own unique way.
💡 How it informed our design solution:
We focused our design on the AR experience of live music rather than trying to replicate the in-person live music experience at home.
This meant we honed in on creating unique augmented spectacles and interactions that complement the music for at-home audiences.
“The sky's the limit of what you can get away with [in virtual events]. And I feel like if you're just going back to the binary broadcaster to listener mode, you're missing out on a lot of the potential”
- Interview Participant 2
“It doesn’t make sense to just recreate the live music experience virtually. Instead, you should give fans something new and different that they can’t do in real life.”
- Sam Schoonover, Innovation Lead for Coachella
research Insight #2 - connectivity
AR experiences should aim to feel more connected and less isolating
A mock up of people using AR glasses in public transport (2021),
Sander Veenhof, LinkedIn
Although the ideal level of immersion varies according to personal preferences, there’s a shift in consumer preferences and industry trends away from complete immersion that removes users from their physical space.
As we found through our literature review and interviews, people express interest in immersive experiences that ideally do not come at the expense of sacrificing spatial awareness of their physical surroundings.
Given that most consumer-level AR/VR products of today depend on a head-mounted display (HMD), most use cases in this space are designed to be experienced alone vs. shared with other people in the same space. There may be an opportunity here to explore solutions that help fill this gap.
💡 How it informed our design solution:
Throughout our design process, we aimed to transport users via immersive music experiences while keeping them connected to their social and physical surroundings.
This finding steered us away from designing a solution that relies on wearables like head-mounted displays (HMDs) or glasses that detach users from other people and objects in their space.
research Insight #3 - Social Interactions
Social interactions are a highly valued aspect of entertainment experiences
Lessons from building social experiences in VR, Meta
One of the biggest draws of attending live events is the opportunity to enjoy entertainment with others. People crave social entertainment experiences because of their desire to form and foster connections, feel a sense of belonging, and create a collective memory with others.
This prompted us to consider how to reimagine home entertainment experiences to create a sense of connection and shareability.
💡 How it informed our design solution:
We designed interactions that multiple people can enjoy at the same time. Furthermore, our solution relies on projections and is not wearable -dependent which enables shareability with others in the same space.
What do research insights tell us to focus on when designing the solution?
Scoping for Design
We scoped our solution space to center on creating augmented live music experiences for at-home audiences.
Focus on
at-home live music
Our research indicated that live music, sports, and movies were the go-to entertainment for our target users. We chose to delve into music as it is enjoyed across generations and demographics, so our solution had the potential for maximum reach.
Furthermore, our design was scoped to live music events meant to be enjoyed at home as our research pointed to a need for the affordability and accessibility that these experiences provide to those who cannot watch their favorite artists perform in person.
Focus on augmenting a familiar space
We wanted to meet our users where they are by integrating our solution into the spaces that they are comfortable with.
Through our research, we found that users don’t want to lose a sense of spatial awareness. Thus, they prefer augmented reality over virtual reality because it offers a connection with their environment.
We chose to augment their surroundings so that they feel a sense of immersion while staying connected to their physical and social surroundings.
Focus on
visuals & interactions
We decided to focus on designing visuals and interactions to add novelty to the live music experience at home. These would add a unique element for the at-home audiences and deepen their connection with the artist and the music.
Through our research, we discovered that live music at home would be best enhanced through interactions instead of replicating the concert spectacle uniqueness.
We also found potential in spatial audio, but given the time constraints of this project, we decided to scope our design solution to focus on the visual aspect.
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Pin-up design directions
Imagining
Possibilities
What do we want to achieve in our design solution?
Design Question & Principles
With all the insights from research, and an internal brainstorming session, to address the problem space, we came up with a design question and a set of design principles to guide our design process.
Design Principles ➡️
Design principle #1
Make it Novel
Find innovative ways to incorporate unique elements that are designed specifically for experiencing live music at home vs. in-person.
Design principle #2
Make it Approachable
Prioritize simplicity in our designs to make it easy and intuitive for users of varying backgrounds and tech expertise to get on board with this new experience.
Design principle #3
Make it Connected
Focus on fostering connections, whether that’s making users feel closer to their favorite artists’ music and craft, or bringing people together for shared experiences.
Design principle #4
Make it Valuable to Users
Ground design decisions in delivering clear benefits to users so that they feel invested in our solution.
Design principle #5
Make it Fun
Design with entertainment in mind to engage users and instill a sense of joy and delight.
Design Directions
Design direction #1
Develop interactions between users and the artist/performer
Design direction #2
Allowing interactions between users and other audience members (whether they’re in the same or distributed locations)
Design direction #3
Create organic interactions between users and the content of the event
Design direction #4
Transform users’ physical surroundings without losing real spatial awareness (i.e. lighting, projections, etc.)
Design direction #5
Incorporate multi-sensory engagement (i.e. visuals, sounds, haptics)
How did we iterate the solution with users?
Overall Design Process
Ideate & iterate the solution with users’ painpoints in mind with 6 methods
HOW DID WE GENERATING IDEAS FROM RESEARCH INSIGHTS?
Crazy 8 Brainstorming
Team members pouring out creative ideas in FigJam
Crazy 8 is a fast-paced brainstorming exercise where each participant generates 8 distinct ideas in just 8 minutes, pushing creativity and encouraging boundary-breaking solutions.
After synthesizing our research insights and defining our design question, principles, and directions, we held a two-hour internal Crazy 8 session to ignite fresh concepts. During the first hour, we spent 8 minutes generating 8 ideas per design direction. After a short break, we reconvened to share out and spent 15 minutes clustering and refining common themes.
In this process, no idea was deemed “too wild,” empowering everyone to think outside the box and draw inspiration from one another.
What we achieved by the end of session:
Identified 3 potential solutions to proceed
Aligned on design directions for solution
Prepared materials & logistics for the co-design session
What artifacts helped us define and explain our early-stage abstract ideas more effectively?
Design Fiction
Design fiction sketches
To bring our concepts to life and spark deeper user empathy, we created Design Fiction sketches enriched with annotated technical details and interaction cues.
Rather than leaving our ideas in the abstract realm, we showcased potential functionalities: from sensor-based triggers to dynamic projections, and wrapped them in fictional scenario narratives that illustrated everyday use cases. This approach bridged the gap between blue-sky speculation and tangible user experiences, helping both our team and test participants visualize the ‘how’ behind each idea.
By providing a clear window into the practical and emotional layers of the solution, we gathered more targeted feedback in the later testing sessions, which ultimately guiding us toward a more user-centered and future-ready design at the end.
How Do We MAKE SURE OUR SOLUTION ADDRESSED USERS NEEDS?
Co-Design Session
To understand user preferences in-depth, we hosted a co-design session with six participants. We drafted three prompts that focused on live music visuals, storytelling, and music’s energy. The six participants were split into two groups. Both groups worked on the prompts individually and came back together at the end for a group discussion.
From the co-design session, we found out that customization and flexibility are the most desired features. For example, participants want to have the ability to choose the level of immersion and set the mood according to their preferences.
During group brainstorming, multiple participants shared ideas that incorporated projections and dynamic lighting. Surround sound was also mentioned a couple of times as an important part of enjoying live music.
What insights dis we get from co-creating with target users?
Multiple participants stated the desire of choosing the level of immersion (low to high)
Multiple design ideas involved with projections and lighting
Participants expressed interests in more immersive sound experience
Team members conduct co-design session with participants
How Do We evaluate the desirability of our co-created design solutions?
Concept Testing
Team tested 3 ideas with 3 participants and asked them to evaluate & rank the desirability of solutions with 6 candies
Drawing from our co-design findings, we came up with three distinct concepts to test with target users.
Leveraging design fictions to visualize and describe each concept, we evaluated our ideas by asking participants to share their honest reactions (likes, dislikes, questions, concerns, etc.).
We also asked each participant to rank the concepts using a voting system (polling with candies, in this case) with 6 total votes to distribute across the concepts according to their preferences.
Participants gave the highest ranking to the concept with a 360-degree dome projector which fills the room with dynamic and interactive visuals that sync with live music. They expressed that this concept stood out from the rest due to its novelty and sense of immersion.
What does the team learned through concept testing:
The most desirable solution voted by participants is the AR Dome Projector System idea
Users need clearer clarifications when introduced to a new system to give them a peace of mind
Prioritization in next steps of testing: form of interaction
How did We test our early stage solution to MAKE SURE it ADDRESSED USERS NEEDS?
Rapid Prototyping & Testing
After concept validation, the team brainstormed possible ways to bring our futuristic ideas to life and then quickly iterate the solution.
We chose using rapid testing method with users so that we could continue iterating based on their feedback on the go. During testing sessions, we asked participants to think aloud while interacting with the prototypes.
Part 1.
Mobile App Wireframe Prototype
To prototype the concept chosen from concept testing, we created a mobile prototype for the 360-degree dome projector setup experience and built paper prototypes for the interactive visuals during a performance.
Part 2.
Physical Prototype
For the time we had and the nature of this blue-sky project, we developed a set of physical prototypes to capture users raw reaction when they first time seeing and interacting with these at-home immersive live music concepts.
The physical prototype were handmade by team members using a variety of objects: pen & paper, cardboard, and daily household objects such as a Swiffer mop.
What are some key takeaways?
Mobile wireframes were easy to follow
The experience made them feel transported to another world
The colors, lighting, and visual elements made the experience immersive
The experience felt more accessible than wearing a VR headset or 3D glasses
One participant expressed interest in enjoying this experience with their friends. Since all of our testing sessions were conducted with individuals, this prompted us to think about how this experience could be social for users.
How Did we showcase a future technology prototype to stakeholders
High-fidelity Prototyping
Based on the feedback from previous user testings, the team proceeded to iterate the solution to better fit users patterns and solve their painpoints on attending live music events.
To better demonstrate the solution to stakeholders, the team crafted 3 types of deliverables.
SonySphere Companion Mobile App Interactive Prototype
SonySphere Concept Video
Experience Diagram (Requested by stakeholders)
🚀
setting up the immersion
SonySphere Companion App Interactive Prototype
Play Interactive Prototype
SonySphere’s companion app guides users through the process of discovering immersive live music events, setting up the device, and preparing to join their immersive live music event with friends at the palm of their hands and in the comfort of their places.
Mobile prototype demonstrated the user flow from the moment they receive a notification for an upcoming event to the start of the event, and the seamless transition from user’s smartphone to SonySphere Dome Projector.
Read More on the Companion App Design Breakdown
🎬
SONYSPHERE 360 IMMERSION SHOWCASE
Concept Video
Since the AR technology we envisioned doesn’t exist yet, we decided to use video as the medium for our high-fidelity prototype.
We invited individuals who had participated in our low-fidelity prototype testing and matched our target audience to act in scenes that showcase key features of our solution.
Our team wrote the script and screenplay based on previous research on target user, created the storyboard, and developed and compiled the high-fidelity assets that would be featured in the video.
After that, with team member’s help, I filmed and composited VFX to showcased the various touchpoints of our design solution, and conveys the social aspect of the experience, making this virtual journey looks lifelike.
Watch Video (2 min)
Sketched Video Storyboard
Dave leads the prototyping process
Dave leads the video prototyping production
🔍
HOW USERS WOULD INTERACT WITH SOLUTION
Experience Diagram
A step-by-step interactive flow demonstrates the end-to-end experience of using the SonySphere dome projector.
The experience starts with the mobile companion application and ends at the conclusion of a live music event.
The scope of this diagram focus on the user experience in the moments right before and during the live music experience itself.
Check out Experience Diagram
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Final Solution
Reality, Amplified
What is the solution
SonySphere AR Dome Projector
Transforming immersive ✨ live music experiences at home with SonySphere augmented reality (AR) dome projector and its mobile companion app.
HOW IT WORKS
Experience live music from home like never before
SonySphere offers a uniquely immersive way of experiencing live music from the comfort of your home.
Whether it’s Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour performance or a small indie concert, immerse yourself in the artist’s world with projected visuals that fill your space and are personalized to your movement.
With easy setup using the mobile companion application, SonySphere instantly transports you to a whole new dimension of live music.
SonySphere Companion Mobile App
SonySphere’s companion app allows users to discover immersive live music events they wish to join and set up the projector for these events on their mobile phone.
🔔
Receive Event Notification
The SonySphere companion app notifies the user when their saved event is about to start. The user can tap on the push notification to set up their dome projector for the event.
💫
Choose Mode for Experience
The user is given the choice to select between Smart Lighting and 360 Immersion according to their preferred level of immersion for the event.
🪜
Complete set up with step-by-step guidance
After confirming their mode selection, the user is guided through a step-by-step process to optimize their experience.
Each step includes instructions and visuals for the user to reference as they prepare for the event.
👀
Review what to expect
Once the user completes setup, they are primed with information on what to expect when the event starts.
In the case of 360 immersion, they are instructed to keep an eye out for prompts that will direct them on how to interact with the projected visuals.
⌛
Waiting Room with Countdown
When the user taps “I’m ready” action button from the previous screen, they will be entering the waiting room where the system displays a countdown to the event.
When the countdown reaches zero, the user can join the event and they are instructed to set their mobile device down while the event is in progress.
SonySphere AR Dome Projector
After concept validation, we brainstormed possible ways to bring our futuristic ideas to life.
Our team wrote the script and screenplay, created the storyboard, and developed and compiled the high-fidelity assets that would be featured in the video.
360 Degree Projections
3D hologram-like visuals transform your surroundings with 360-degree projection mapping, enabling a fully immersive AR experience without the need for wearables.
Motion-Sensored Interactions
Create your own concert experience with novel interactions. Smart sensors allow you to interact with projections that respond and adapt to your movement.
Artist-Curated Visuals
Immerse yourself in the artist’s world through specially curated lighting and visuals that represent their music and vision.
What do target consumers say about sonysphere
“Love this idea, especially because it creates connection and brings the digital experience to the real world. Amazing! :)”
“I like this product - I believe it solves a huge hurdle to making AR an everyday product!”
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future Direction
Our Journey,
Our Why
What's next
Areas that we hope to dive-in deeper…
As this project involves a blue-sky concept and futuristic technology, there is a lot of room for further research and design.
Below are potential future directions our team has discussed.
Accessibility
In order to ensure consumers can make the most of this product, whatever their age, abilities, or environments may be, we recommend conducting accessibility research and building in support for vision, hearing, mobility, etc.
There’s an opportunity here to incorporate accessibility features that already exist in many Sony products today (such as Adaptive Display Size and Text and Voice Control).
We also advise designing and testing directly with disabled individuals to understand their needs for enjoying live music at home.
More Customization
Given the time constraints of this project, we designed an MVP that keeps the settings simple with just 2 modes (Smart Lighting and 360 immersion).
However, our research suggests that users appreciate customization and flexibility.
In the next stage, we recommend designing additional flows that allow users to adjust individual settings for sound, lighting, and visuals, giving them more control over tailoring the experience according to their preferences.
Extending Use Cases
We designed SonySphere specifically to enhance the at-home live music experience, but there is an opportunity to explore how it can support other forms of home entertainment beyond this context.
Some immediate examples that come to mind based on our research include sporting events and gaming, but additional user research can help surface other potential use cases as well.
Multisensory Engagement
Another potential design opportunity is multisensory engagement to make the experience more immersive and interactive.
Multisensory engagement includes not only visual and sound but also haptics. Haptics could be used in a scenario where users could feel the beat of a song through vibrations on their wrists while wearing a bracelet.
Sound Design
Sound plays a crucial role in live music events and entertainment. In fact, many of our research participants emphasized the significance of audio quality and expressed interest in elements such as surround sound and spatial audio.
Though our research led us to focus on introducing novelty in our design through visual and interactive elements, there are many opportunities to leverage Sony’s suite of exceptional audio products to create an immersive live music experience for at-home audiences.
going back in time
What I wish we could do better?
Expanding Spatial Computing Knowledge
Spatial computing was a term we were only vaguely familiar with at the start of this project.
Although we were able to gather a lot of information online through researching this topic, we found it challenging to understand the full breadth and depth of its capabilities, which also led to difficulties of imagining possible design solutions.
Looking back, it would have been helpful if we had the opportunity to talk to experts in this rapidly evolving field before diving into research.
Navigating Ambiguity
Sony’s project proposal for our team was highly futuristic and open-ended, so we had to adapt quickly and learn to navigate ambiguity.
It required us to stay agile while being comfortable with continuous scoping and iteration throughout the project.
There were moments when we found ourselves questioning whether we had narrowed our focus enough to make progress towards the final design instead of appreciating the freedom of divergent thinking.
In hindsight, we would tell ourselves to focus on the different steps in the process rather than being overwhelmed by the blue-sky nature of the overall project.
made in Seattle with ❤️