Assignment
Students practiced representing products, services, and environmental concepts quickly and effectively at different stages of the design process to understand how an envisioned design could affect user behaviors. By representing concepts through prototyping and visualization, designers advance the development process and inform design decision-making.
Problem
After researching how and where people use and store their headphones, the team discovered several common workarounds that users regularly fall back on: wrapping the headset cord around the iPhone (rendering the touchscreen unusable), coiling the wire around fingers and putting it in a bag or pocket (only to dig it out later fully tangled), or surrendering to the chaos by stuffing the wad of tangled earphone cords somewhere and hoping for the best.
These behaviors aren’t ideal, but neither is carrying an extra doodad with you to wrap headphone cords around. The team thinks TidyTilt untangles the headphone cord predicament whilst also serving as a handy kickstand and magnetic mount for the iPhone.
Proposed User Experience
Tidies
Wrap your earbud cords without skipping a beat. TidyTilt is always at hand, since it lives on the back of your iPhone. When you’re done using your earbuds, simply wrap them over your iPhone, snap TidyTilt closed, and pop your earbuds right off. TidyTilt keeps your cords neat and secure, whether in a bag, pocket, or attached to your iPhone.
Tilts
TidyTilt serves as a stand for iPhone, enabling landscape and portrait orientation at multiple angles—perfect for watching movies, typing, or making video calls. It even does so while simultaneously keeping your earbuds secured. Gaming with a friend? Position Tidytilt at the center of the iPhone for a new seesaw-like head-to-head gaming experience.
Mounts
Thanks to TidyTilt’s strong, strategically-placed magnets, you can tack your earbuds or whole iPhone to any magnetically-responsive surface. Pop iPhone onto your fridge for referencing cooking recipes, stick it to a dry-erase board for brainstorming, or park it on the key-holder by your front door.
Prototype
Our Prototyping Process
We built and tested dozens of prototypes before settling on TidyTilt‘s final design. Using rapid prototyping techniques such as laser cutting, we were able to quickly make modifications and test the impact of our changes.