Value
Which capabilities would matter enough to survive beyond the first week of novelty?
01 Titan Eye+ · Smart wearable
Eyewear became
an interface.
Designing the product experience for EyeX—smart glasses that play music, take calls, track movement and care for your eyes, without looking like a gadget.
Red Dot 2022Product design · Smart product
01 / Premise
The brief sounded like an app. The real design problem lived across three surfaces: the glasses, the phone and the world around the wearer.
EyeX used open-ear audio so people could stay connected without losing awareness of their surroundings. That made the experience safer and more social—but also created a new mental model. People understood “glasses” and “earphones.” They did not yet understand the space between them.
02 / The object
Technology you could
forget you were wearing.
The hardware was deliberately quiet: a 28-gram everyday frame hiding open-ear speakers, dual microphones, touch controls, Bluetooth and motion sensing inside its temples.
01Open-ear
audio
audio
02Touch-sensitive
temples
temples
03Independent
batteries
batteries
Calls·Music·Navigation·Fitness·Eye care·Camera remote·Presentations·Find my glasses·
········
Campaign film / Launch
The product promise,
in motion.
Before explaining flows, we let the object establish desire. The launch film shows the frame in its intended register: familiar eyewear first, invisible technology second.
Watch with sound ↗03 / Reframing the brief
The product had features.
People needed a reason.
Learning
How could unfamiliar gestures and two separate batteries feel obvious, not technical?
Continuity
How should the app, physical frame and existing Titan Eye+ ecosystem behave as one?
04 / Research
Listen for the expectation gap.
Interviews spanned spectacle wearers, non-wearers and people already comfortable with smart accessories. We tested value before polishing screens.
User interviewsCompetitive analysisPrototype testingStakeholder workshops
“Show me whether it’s connected.”
Device and battery status were not utility details; they were the foundation of trust. The two temples could discharge independently, so the home screen had to explain both at a glance.
“Don’t make my glasses another screen.”
People wanted calls, music and navigation because they reduced phone use. Secondary tools had to remain voluntary and quiet.
Eye care was the brand’s unfair advantage.
Users valued guided assessments and healthy-screen reminders more than our early assumptions predicted. It connected the technology back to Titan Eye+’s reason to exist.
Three groups, one shared baseline
We spoke with spectacle wearers, non-wearers and smart-accessory users across three age bands. Their appetite for bonus features changed; their need for a dependable connection state did not.
Camera, fitness and remote tools made the frame feel worth discovering.
Connection, eye-care controls and useful extras had to coexist without clutter.
Readable setup, lens reminders and clear status mattered before novelty.
04B / In the room
The system was designed
on walls, not in isolation.
Research became useful only when the team could challenge it together. We pinned competing flows, walked every state, argued about priority and kept the unresolved parts visible.
05 / Experience architecture
One product.
Three layers of control.
The information architecture went through eight passes. The final model separates what belongs on the frame, what belongs in the companion app and what should disappear into the background.
01 / WearThe frameTap · swipe · listen
BLE
02 / UnderstandEyeX appStatus · setup · control
OS
03 / DoYour worldCalls · health · tools
See the final information architecture+
01Set readable type
02Create profile
03Charge & wake
04Find & pair
05Land on status
06 / The design pivot
When illustration failed,
the product taught the product.
Early onboarding used friendly illustrations. Tests showed that friendliness was not clarity: people still could not tell which temple to touch, which way to swipe or what feedback to expect.
BeforeGeneric explanation
AfterObject-specific instruction
3D → motion → code
We modelled the glasses in Cinema 4D, rendered them in KeyShot, animated gestures in After Effects, then shipped them as lightweight Lottie sequences. Each instruction showed the exact object, action and response.
07 / Final experience
Confidence first.
Capability in layers.
The final product is presented as six behavioural stories—not a wall of UI. Each sequence answers a different question the wearer has, from “is it connected?” to “what can my glasses do now?”
01 / First run
Teach the object
with the object.
Account inputs stay short. The real onboarding begins when the frame appears: charge it, wake it, open the temples, then search. Each screen names one physical action and waits for one observable response.
- One action per frame
- Literal product views
- No abstract setup metaphors
02 / Pair & status
Make invisible state
impossible to miss.
Connection and battery are not utility details; they are the product’s trust contract. The dashboard gives the frame the top of the hierarchy and reports both temples independently.
ObjectExact frameStateBoth batteriesResponsePlain language
03 / Eye care
Turn brand equity
into daily utility.
Eye care was the credible advantage competitors could not copy. Five guided checks sit beside contact-lens, blink and 20–20–20 reminders—with every prompt voluntary and reversible.
DuochromeVisual acuityCentral visionColour blindnessAstigmatism
04 / Fitness
Familiar patterns
for unfamiliar input.
The motion sensor reads head movement, but the interface never asks people to learn a new fitness language. Rings, goals and day/week views make an unusual sensor feel immediately legible.
05 / Remote tools
Let the frame earn
its place on your face.
A temple gesture becomes a camera shutter or presentation control. Recovery is designed for both kinds of failure: ring nearby glasses, or use the last known location once they disconnect.
06 / System depth
The quiet screens
complete the product.
Notifications, profile inputs and local units are not launch moments. They are what make fitness, reminders and cross-device behaviour dependable—and every optional behaviour remains editable.
08 / Interaction language
A tiny gesture needed
a complete sentence.
09 / Outcome
From unfamiliar technology
to an everyday object.
10 / Looking back
The app was not the interface.
The relationship was.
Our early instinct was to give exciting interactions—music, fitness, camera control—the loudest voice. Research corrected that. People became curious only after they felt oriented.
The strongest work was not one screen. It was the connective tissue: honest device states, literal gesture teaching, voluntary wellbeing tools and a visual language built from the object itself.
Make the unfamiliar legible.
Then let the magic happen.