Urbanears Ugglan - Studying Usercentered Designin Product Development
Abstract: This report describes the master’s thesis conducted by Sunny Ahmed and Linnéa Olssonat KTH Royal Institute of Technology for the client Zound Industries. By exploringemerging technologies and user needs, the project members developed a design proposal forheadphones for active users that can be released in three to five years’ time.Urbanears Ugglan is the headphone solution that allows you to take control of your physicalactivities and experience true freedom. It consists of two parts: true wireless earphonesand a wearable wrist accessory that stores and charges the earphones on the go, while alsofunctioning as a fitness tracker.Aside from the first purpose of creating the design proposal, the second purpose of the thesiswas to investigate the impact of involving the intended user in the design process duringproduct development when adopting a user-centered design approach.Different methods were used to gather relevant information. Both market research and atechnical trend analysis were done as background research, and complemented the userstudies. The insights discovered from these phases were used to generate concepts, fromwhich one was selected for further development after discussion with the client company. Thisconcept evolved into the final design proposal, Urbanears Ugglan.The project team found a positive impact from using user-centered design and involving theuser in several stages of the project. Including the intended user in the development led toa better understanding of their needs and values, which in turn allowed the project team toquickly verify the potential of product ideas.
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