aware: keep runners safe and motivated
‘aware’ is designed for urban runners to be aware of their surroundings regarding safety and motivation from listening to music while running. Sound signals from earphones warn runners about fast-approaching objects without compromising the music-listening experience. It’s a combination of digital and physical products, including optional earphones and a detector to wear anywhere on your back. The sensor can detect whether a bike or scooter is coming close to you. For runners who already have earphones, they only need to download the Spotify software plugin. This Spotify software plugin is used to adjust music based on your running tempo because the software will match your running tempo with music tempo ( beats per minute), thus increasing your motivation to run.
Project background
Imagine you live in a metropolitan city in the middle of a downtown area. Some people call it a concrete jungle, not a lot of people have the luxury to live in a place where you are surrounded by nature. People who live close to nature can enjoy a run outside without too much of a concern. However, when you live in the center of a busy city, there are things to be concerned about when you go out for a run. First, it is about traffic, will scooters or bikes be coming from behind you? Especially if it is a path where pedestrians and bikes/scooters share the same path. Many times, it is very hard to hear what is coming from behind you. In addition, if you are listening to music while running as most people do, it is impossible to hear what is coming from behind.
Project details
Project team - Erik Ivarson, Nils Achenbach and Yuan Tian
Project Duration - 2 weeks
My role
I was the only interaction designer on the team, so I was responsible for all the UX, UI animation, wireframing, sound design, concept direction, user journey mapping, and concept validation.
Awards
aware concept video
Current challenges
“I want to feel safe while running at night. So I don’t listen to music even if I want to, and need to be aware of what is coming behind me.”
— Lisa, urban runner
“I love to run with music and follow the tempo, however if I am in the zone of listening to music, I am not aware of what is coming behind me.”
— James at Runner’s club
How might we help runners feel safe in an urban environment and motivated to run more, while addressing music listening experiences?
We want to present our solution by imagining a story with you. It’s snow season and you live in downtown Stockholm in Sweden. On a Saturday afternoon, you are about to go out for a run. As you are leaving home, you put on your sneakers and earphones. You took out your phone and select your favorite music track. As you start your run, you realize it ‘s a busy street, so you put your earphones away to hear what’s coming behind you cause you are afraid you might be hit by a bike or a scooter ( as we all know how quiet can a scooter be, let alone when there is snow on the ground which will dampen the sound of scooters even more.) You feel a bit unmotivated without listening to music while running. That’s why we designed ‘aware’. Our goal is to protect the safety of runners and at the same time without interrupting the music listening experience.
The essence of the solution is safety without compromising music listening experiences for urban runners. There are two main features: motivation mode and safety mode. It’s a combination of digital and physical product consists of a pair of earphones (optional) that you wear around your ears and a detector that you wear anywhere on your back. This feature lowers music volume when there is an alert sound, but the best part is the music follows your tempo of running thus gives you motivation to run. This is done by the software part: a Spotify digital plugin. Current market have designs for bikers, but with not ideal user experience. We also thought about camera with AI technology embedded to recognize exactly what kind of vehicles you have.
aware’s system
Physical + Digital
aware consists of a detector and a pair of earphones with a Spotify plugin, the idea is Spotify plugin is able to upgrade your existing earphones to have updated safety and motivation features.
Physical features
For awareness mode, the detector on your back could sense three levels of danger The detector will know what is coming and how close a vehicle is behind you.
Digital features
Aware can have alert sound while listening to music, at the same time, without the alert sounds being too intrusive due to 3D audio environments, so you know which direction a vehicle is coming behind you.
Two modes
For awareness mode, when the detector sense what is behind you, it will signal you with a distinctive sound for the object. The motivation mode works by adapting music to your BPM. For example, when you run at a faster pace, music genre will be selected based on your bpm. When you are jogging at a slower pace, music will adapt to a slower bpm.
Process
We started with ourselves first, some of our team members are marathon runners, and then we started interviewing runners who live in the center of the city, we experience it ourselves as well and became empathetic with what urban runners experience as well. We spoke with subject matter experts in engineering to see if what we envision is possible with our design. For example: if the sensor we develop to detect the distance behind you is accurate or even possible like spatial awareness for your surroundings, noise canceling but aware of what is coming from behind you. We want to make sure it can detect 3 zones or levels of danger. By that, we meant, that three kinds of alert sound can be detected depending on which zone a vehicle has passed. Zone 1: Dangerous (really close); Zone 2: getting close; and Zone 3: far away but towards your direction.
Using Lego to play scenarios
Lever 1 ( far, not dangerous)
Wizard of Oz
Lever 2 ( closer, getting dangerous)
Lever 3 ( very dangerous)
We used Wizard of Oz because we are not sure how people will feel when there is a notification sound coming from behind, will it sound weird? will this feel abnormal? We learned to use sound that is not intrusive and use 3D audio technology, so people know which direction the sound comes from.
Reflection
Sustainability
The earphones are optional so that we are not adding unnecessarily products to the planet. We will produce ensuring fair labor, we want to use aluminum materials that can be recycled unlimited times. The packaging will be minimal, using as less as possible. The social impact is to save people from getting injured so that less hospital visits and save resources on healthcare. People do not need to take sick leave because of injuries. We also try to design a Spotify plugin instead of a whole new app, the reason being that it is not necessary to waste resources, e.g. hosting data in data center somewhere, it will use less power for the users on their phone by having one less app to install, with just a plugin.
Future
As a team, we hope that this idea could be in the real market even it is a student project. Actually, we want to do some iterations on our existing designs as a team. For example, the sensor at the back right now is magnetic, we want to make a 2.0 version, like a running belt along the chest area since one of our group members is a marathon runner, and through his feedback, we realized that might be a potential 2.0 solution. For the software side, we are hoping to be able to collaborate with Spotify and actually create a plugin with them with their design language seamlessly. As a group, we are ambitious four and can see ourselves as designers who add value and make people’s lives easier and happier in our ways.
The collaboration between Industrial design and Interaction design students brought out the best in each of us, we collaborated in a way not only doing what we are good at but also tasks we find challenging.
We prioritized learning from each group member by doing challenging tasks the other people are good at. We save a section of time daily to learn from each other and let each other know what we did, taking everyone’s opinion into account. I learned I want to work with people who are passionate about what they do, it is intoxicating to be with people who are so humble, already good at what they do, and want to do better. Lucky to be in this group. I wish I kept a journal through this project, the timeline is quite tight, next time this is something we could discuss together and see how it can be done in a really quick way, writing on a few post-its and putting it on a wall somewhere, like a daily learning post-it note.