The Problem

This product is a solution to a very specific problem- changing the volume of your music device while running.

When running, we often have to change the volume over the course of the run, especially if we’re running in the city. We come across different volumes of environmental noise (running by a busy road, passing by a construction site, what have you). This means we need to turn the music volume up and down quite a few times throughout the run.

Now changing the volume can be a pain, depending on where we’ve placed our music device. If we’re not using a remote control earphone, then we need to take it out of the pocket and change it, which means slowing down and distracting ourselves from simply enjoying our run. Even using an armband requires us to slow down or bit, or stop moving the arm its on to change the volume… not something we like to do when all we want to do is zone out.

A remote controlled earphone is no better (something I personally use) because we still need to temporarily slow our speed down and get hold of the volume control on the earphone wire. I certainly don’t enjoy it, and believe you don’t too.

The Solution

My solution to the volume changing hassle is an easy, ‘don’t make me think’ one. It is an earphone for runners, where the volume is controlled through the earphone itself rather than the music device.
The difference is that the volume is controlled through a rotary knob (just like those on the old television sets) and this knob is placed on the earphones itself (as you can see in the picture I’ve attached- the extruded portion is supposed to be the rotary knob).

Changing volume is as easy as rotating the knob on either headphone. This means we no longer have to slow down while running. We no longer have to get distracted from having to cumbersomely change the volume. It’s as simple as volume changing should be while running.

Key Features

The product is an earphone targeted at runners and joggers. It solves the specific issue of the cumbersome process of changing the volume of music over the course of a run. It is special because I believe there is no other solution out there which makes it as easy as the this product.

Product Comparison

I am aware of none at the moment

This is a fantastic presentation on NPR’s COPE concept- create once, publish everywhere. Karen asks the right questions- why are we still letting content authors plan for where their content will live on a web page? Why do we waste time and money creating and recreating content instead of planning for content reuse? As our design and development processes evolve, our content workflow has to keep up. And she does a good job of providing the right answers on how we can we adapt to creating more flexible content.

I left Delhi and moved to Singapore early in the year to join PebbleRoad and have since then had a great time working on a whole lot of digital strategy, user research, information architecture, mobile and social interaction design, usability testing and competitive evaluations for websites and intranets for both the government and corporations such as IE Singapore, Tourism Australia, Visa, SMU, Guiness, Singtel, DHL and more. And the projects went well, nothing like getting repeat proejcts from happy clients. Great team, great fun.

I plan to get back to writing again this year, so you can expect more articles on ConeTrees this year. It’s February already and it is a little late for new year greetings, none the less, I hope you have a wonderful 2012.

Most viewed

The UX Bookmark- the best UX links for the smartest User Experience practitioners
Videos from UX Week 2011
UX Quotes- Quotes on User Experience

Suggested viewing

A Quick Look into IDEO’s Design Process- Designing a Shopping Cart in 5 days
Alan Siegel on simplifying legal jargon (simple language)
Alexis Lloyd on new interactions with news

Chris van der Walt & P.J. Onori of HunchWorks on Applying Human-centric Design to Complex Global Problems

Mark Trammell & Jesse James Garrett on Creating Engagement on Twitter

Kristian Simsarian on Educating the Next Generation of Interaction Designers

Teresa Brazen and Kate Rutter on Intentional Environments: Designing a Culture of Co-creation

Jon Wiley on “Whoa, Google Has Designers!”

Steven Pemberton on The Computer as Extended Phenotype

Chad Jennings on Creating People Powered Businesses

Rob Maigret on Tomorrowland Is Today

R. Brian Stone on Stop Watching and Start Experiencing Web Enabled TV

Adam Lisagor on Video as User Experience

Adam Goldstein on UX As Product Strategy: Differentiation in a Crowded Market

Alexa Andrzejewski on Lessons from a UX Driven Startup

Jaron Lanier

Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky)

Rajat talks about how designers can address fundamental human needs and desires (like status, achievement, reward, competition, self-expression) to make experiences both compelling and satisfying.

He talks about how game designers have known for years on how to incentivise and motivate players by addressing these needs through the use of mechanics like points, levels, leaderboards, virtual goods, challenges, and real-time feedback. He covers the migration of these mechanics out of the gaming world and into the world at large, including destination sites, devices, productivity applications, corporate intranets, and the professional networking platform, LinkedIn.

About Rajat Paharia

Rajat Paharia is the founder and Chief Product Officer of Bunchball. He created the world’s first gamification platform for brand engagement, Nitro, in 2007. Rajat’s skill set combines a unique expertise in technology, design and human behavior that he developed while working at the design firm IDEO, and through his masters in computer science with a focus on Human Computer Interaction (HCI) at Stanford university.

Bunchball’s clients include Fortune 500 companies like NBC, Warner Brothers, Comcast and Hewlett-Packard, who are helped with crafting gamification strategies that engage customers, partners and employees.

Related Links

Rajat Paharia on twitter: @rajatrocks
Bunchball website
Bunchball on twitter: @bunchball

If you need to get your stakeholders thinking about taking their first step (or their next step- from unplanned to get thinking and developing a strategy) in social media, then you will find this video helpful in collecting examples and data points that show how organizations have benefited from social media.

Being a video infographic, rather than text or an image means quicker assimilation of what it is trying to convey. While its a great way to share knowledge with your team, it makes even more sense to show it to your stakeholders.

About the video

This video was made in 2009 by Erik Qualman of Socialnomics. I came across it on day one of KM Singapore at Michelle Lambert’s masterclass on developing a social media strategy.

In 1998, ABC’s Nightline news show asked IDEO to create a new shopping cart concept, considering issues such as maneuverability, shopping behavior, child safety, and maintenance cost. The resulting episode demonstrates IDEO’s design process, showing the multidisciplinary team brainstorming, researching, prototyping, and gathering user feedback on a design in order to move all the way from an idea to a prototype in just four days time.

Interestingly, the cart went on to win an IDSA IDEA Silver award in 1999.

About IDEO

IDEO is an international design and innovation consultancy founded in Palo Alto, USA with other national and international offices. IDEO helps design products, services, environments, and digital experiences. It has become increasingly involved in management consulting and organizational design.

Related Links

IDEO website

Alexis talks about some of the notable paradigm shifts that are happening around technology and media and how these affect the user experience; like the web shifting from a paradigm of publishing to communicating, and from people finding content to content finding people.

She discusses the implications of these changes in technology and consumer behavior for news content publishers, and how it can be used to facilitate innovative content experiences.

About Alexis Lloyd

Alexis Lloyd is a creative technologist for the research and development group at The New York Times. She is responsible for researching technology trends and prototyping future interfaces for content consumption across platforms and devices.

Related Links

Alexis’ website

From the feedback I have received, I could not be more glad in knowing how much it has helped many of you- at times when you have needed it most, or how you have used it to slowly build your knowledge in user experience or a particular area within it.

If you are a usability engineer, user researcher, human factors specialist, interaction designer or an information architect, then the UX Bookmark is a resource specially for you.

The UX Bookmark

1. Copy the cells of the column you want to convert to a row.
2. Right-click the first cell of the row you want to move the data to.
3. Click ‘Paste special’ from the context menu
4. Select ‘Transpose’ (at the lower right of the dialog box) and then ‘OK’

You’re done.