A headphone that meets user's context and preferences. Through the use of modularity, GRID is able to adapt to multiple situations: traveling, Dj'ing...
Components of the GRID modular headphone for AIAIAI
Working in collaboration for AIAIAI, the objective of the team was to create a product by definition of a strategy that helps the company to position the company in a spot the can compite with bigger companies, on a market that is oversaturated and where innovation has been limited during the last years.
Taking the defined strategy given by AIAIAI, "To become the preferred global headphone brand for DJs and music creators. (prosumers)" an initial research phase of internal & external factors that reviewed AIAIAI’s brand and current portfolio, was done in order to validate this and to become more familiar with AIAIAI's world.
Render
After the strategy was concreted, we started a contextual and user research, focusing the target group: Prosumers.
People has a desire for versatility, meaning that by being able to adapt the product to a concrete context, people do not need to have several heaphones.
Users aimed to be able to personalize more their own experience of use, by being able to change/repair parts, adjusting sound settings and adaptability to different situations, without giving up sound quality.
This became our product focus: design a high-end proposition with modularity as a differentiator from other brands, keeping the design languaje AIAIAI has stablished for its products and brand.
Generative session with users
The project stands on 3 main cornerstones: strategy, concept and embodiment.
My task on the project was to learn from users, in order to come up with interesting and promising insights in order to assist the strategy and product to achieve its goal. By user-researching (interviews, generative sessions & tests) I first understood what Dj's and Producers, requiere, feel and do when they talk about their experience with headphones, to later on assist the strategist and product designers to put this in a product that fits prosumer requirements.
GRID modular system
Understanding modularity, did not only imply the physical, if not also the digital. I researched about non-physical modularity and elaborate on an app that allowed users customize even more the exact equialization they are looking on the headphones. This could be done thanks to the DSP technology - digital signal processing - , with which, sound profiles can be uploaded directly into the driver settings and be stored.
Wireframes of the app
Designed by: Pieter Vegt // Philip Battin // Alec Momont // Malik Ivan // Damián Abarca //
