Title: Flip (headphone)
Documented by: Candy Bi
Professor: Eric
Description:
Flip is developed upon the idea of fliping the direction of sound came into the two ears. For example, someone was standing on you left talking to you, rather than hearing his voice in you left year, you would feel like he is speaking on your right.
The inspiration of Flip is a “blindfold walking” experienment in class during which my partner was tring to judge the direction she is facing by listening to the sound surrounding. What if the the sound on the right comes into the left ear and the sound on the left comes into the right ear?
Perspective and Context:
Basically, Flip is a combinition of headphone and hat, users wear the hat and plug in the two tubes connected to the two horns, which are made out of material that would shine different colors in different lights. The hat is on the other hand made black, together with the horns and tubes, I expect my project to be like a modern art peice.
This project is intended to create a different experience to the hearing sense. It is also a experiment of human brain. I wonder hether human brain could adjust to it and flip the sounds to normal for those who kept wearing the device as I recall the glasses used to make one’s sight up side down.
Development & Technical Implementation:
My basic idea is to use a horn shape device to gather the sound on two sides and to use pipes to connect to ear on the other side.
I decide on the material of the horns–two layers: one for show and the other is smooth enough for sound to be stored and transported.
Then I got this.
Looking for the perfect pipes took me a lot of time. I even use the pipe from the fridge for testing. It turns out too big that there would always be sound of wind inside the pipes.
I got my perfect ones from a bag, it later suprises me with its perfect fit with nomal earphone.
At first, I was thinking about putting those two horns right beside human’s ear, however, the horn is too heavy to hold and even 502 could not work. Skye suggested to make a hat to hold them and that does work quite well.
In order make the hat stable, two strings are connected to the hat.
I connect rubber to the pipes so that they are more wearable and the sound effect could be intensified.
Some more improvements is made to make the hat more like a hat that is wearable without the strings. I cut the two strings and add another layer which is hollow in side so that it could create some space to hold one’s head.
User testing & Presentations:
I am quite satisfied with what I have. During the presentation, I got some really useful feedbacks. For example, “Flip” works especially well when the speakers are on the two sides of the user, yet it does not works well when the sound comes from the in between the horn. Another feedback I got is how they like the looking of it. Some people just came to me to ask whether they could take a selfie while wearing it. This is quite great for it allows me to have more feedbacks from users. The shape of the earphone is intended to enlarge the sound so that user could hear it more clearly, which create a feeling of being in an room which echos a lot. Also I found that the hat sometimes falls off for it has a unchangable size which could not fit everyone’s head.
Conclusion:
During the production, I changed my design several times, including changing the horns to the top of the hat, adding another layer of the hat to get rid of the two stings and adding rubber to the tip of the tubes. These all come from the feedbacks from users which I found really useful and efficient to improve my projects. I now quite understand the importance of user testing. The more one project goes through “user testing” and “improve” loop, the better it could be. I am really happy that the basic function of the headphone is quite good and I like the visual design very much.
Though the outcome turns out good in general, there does exist something I am not so satisefied with. In terms of the design itself, the hat is not stable enough to fit all the head sizes and the sound is not so natural as I expected though creating an interesting user experience. In terms of the user part, the earphone need more work so that it could stick to the tip of the tubes(it sometimes falls off and the users get confused with the effect of the headphone). These are what I wanted to improve in the future. Additionally, I wanted to rethink about the materials I use to make Flip lighter and more user friendly.