adventure communication made simple

UNIFY is a smart wearable device that allows casual adventure groups to maintain simple communication with each other on the go without having to worry about signal, battery, or environmental factors.



RISD Fall 2021 | Duration: Two months
Teamwork with Amanda Han

My responsibilities: research, work-like model
Amanda's responsibilities: app UI
Collaborative: UX, product design

1. Identifying the Problem Space

Market Opportunities
Questionnaire (59 participants, US residents, age 18 to 25)

• 30% do more than one sport
• Most people do adventure sports 1–2 times per year
• Skiing and snowboarding are the most popular sport, followed by hiking and climbing.
• Most people travel in two to five persons group
• Most people do adventure sports with friends and family
• Less than 1/4 own all equipment, most people rent at least a few items.
• Smartphones are the most popular navigation equipment.
• A whopping 35.3% of respondees recall getting in a dangerous situation where their group was split.

User Dynamics User Persona Interviews

Five in-depth interviews were conducted.

Journey Maps

Journey maps are made based on these interviews. Red indicates the lost person's journey; blue indicates the rest of the group.

Observable Patterns

A common pattern discovered: the "Valley of Anxiety"

Common Journey Features

• In the event of a group separation, it is impossible to anticipate the occurrence and severity of problems missing members might be experiencing.
• Delayed response from the rest of the group
• Indeterminant and prolonged period of anxiety
• Sudden emotional contrast will lead to heightened anxiety and feeling of helplessness.


How might we bridge this gap and delay in communication?

2. Existing Products and Technologies

Referenced Concepts

• Radio frequency
• Real-time Location Systems- RTLS
• Triangulation, RF directional antennas
• Georeferencing
• Hydrophone
• Wildlife radio telemetry
• RFID
• GPS
• Near Field Communication- NFC
• Ultra Wide Band- UWB

More references

3. Where Will This Product Live on an Active Body?

• arms: gears cover
• legs and feet: walk, paddle, hard to access
• torso: back & shoulders are restricted
• face: goggles & mouth piece


• Potential placement — wrist: intersection between sleeve and glove; and hands

Form Studies

*Form studies are done with the intention of incorporating direction indicating haptics

After these form studies, we decided to reduce the product to the most familiar and minimalistic form: a simple band with physical buttons and no screen.

We decided to speak more with senses and reduce the physical presence of the product.

Haptics User Tests

4. Communication System

Pinpointing ideas that needed to be communicated between two parties at key points on map.

Shorten, group and sort key ideas based on level of emotional agitation.

Pairing key communicational ideas with functions and icons

Initial functions in button form

How to make the wearable work for both receiving and sending information with the same amount of buttons and the same interface?

Sender	Receiver
find others	stop / wait
navigate me to group
find me	follow navigation
come to me, emergency

After a lot of experimentation, the dialogue to communicate in times of trouble was reduced to two binary sets of notifications and responses .

- When the lost person falls behind and wants to catch up, the first function navigates them to the group while the group (receiver) will be notified to wait.

- When the lost person is in trouble and needs help from the group, the second function assures them to wait, while the group (receiver) will be notified to follow the navigation.



How to make the wearable work both on land and underwater, for different sports and situations?



Test Against and Solve Potential Scenarios

Some scenarios studied:
• Person in danger
• Someone wants to catch up with the rest of the group
• Multiple users signal not okay
• Prioritized functions and response

User Test and UI Refinement

User test focus: icons, direction indication, intuitiveness

Prioritizing the study of multi-person interaction at this stage, a quick digital prototype of the interface was used to test the intuitiveness of icons.

Feedback from user tests helped validate our functionalities, but some icon and display choices led to confusion. All users understood the system after several minutes of interaction.

Taking these feedbacks, we continued to refine functions and display.

Progression of functions and displays development

5. Physical interaction

Button placement iteration

Rapid 3D prototypes are used to consider the physical size of elements.

Work-like models

Work-like models are made using micro-processors and NRF24L01 radiofrequency modules to study user interaction with LED, sound and haptics responses.

6. Final product concept

Physical Product: Wearable Technology Wristband

Alternative Forms

As a communication study, UNIFY system has the potential be integrated into existing adventure sport products, such as dive watches (band) and avalanche beacons (extra communication buttons).

User interface User Interaction (Simplified Demonstration)

Mobile Application

Functionalities include pairing, providing interactive instructions, and allowing adjustments to activity-specific settings.

New User Journey

• Reduced initial anxiety
• Shortened time of uncertainty
• Level of danger communicated
• No individual left uninformed

System technology

Packaging & Charging

Case with built-in induction charging.

• Charger port eliminated
• More waterproof, weather proof
• Drawbacks: slow charging, less efficiency
→ Product's battery should be long lasting enough for this charging method to be sufficient.

An example of applicable induction charging components: TIDA-00318

Battery

Li-ion battery (should not charge if below freezing point)

An example of applicable battery solution designed for wearable tech:

Samsung SDI Mini Li-ion batteries PCF582124, PCF441435



Current specs
(Extracted from Samsung SDI's website. Date accessed: December 2021)

Antenna

There are many recent advances in antenna solutions for wearable technology. Eg.,


• Stretchable wearable antennas | example patent
• Wearable patch antenna | example article
→ Compatible antennas should be added to design after practical validation.

7. Appendix

References

An incomplete list of references used to inform this project, not including the aforementioned resources.


• Aquatic animal tracking and MP2P
  
  Star:Oddi [1], Advanced Telemetry System [2], “Business card tags” by VEMCO ltd., [3], Electronic tags [4]


• Underwater RFID
  
  Challenges with RF underwater [1], POI (Point of Interest) underwater logger by Brizo [2]


• In development/ impractical at the moment
  
  GPS with floats [1] [2], MIT: underwater GPS [2]