See Sound

DATE
Oct 2021 - Dec 2021

TEAM
Personal Project

ROLE
UI/UX Design

Hearing-impaired people make up a large portion of the U.S. population –– one in eight people in the United States (13 percent, or 30 million) aged 12 years or older has hearing loss in both ears. While there are millions of products designed to help hearing impaired to physically live a more convenient life, we want them to find fulfillment in spiritual values and design that is not only accessible, but also connected to the entire community.
‍
See Sound is an augmented reality platform that allows users to create and interact with virtual marks based on captured sound, which appear as if they are in the user's real world location.

[Problem]

How to let hearing impaired people to see, feel, and interact with sound?

[Goals]

[Feel] Visualize sound through audio metrics
[Create] Create virtual sound marks in AR
[Explore] Explore and interact with other marks and people

"We need to be more than accessible, we need to be connected." said by Rebecca Knill on her TED TALK: "How technology has changed what it's like to be deaf". Inspired by her speech, See Sound aims to build an entertaining and social platform that reveals the hidden talent of hearing impaired through their imagination of sound and unlimited possibilities of each users creations, which connect the hearing impaired and others, explore interesting sound in the city, and bring values to being hearing impaired.

[Create, Draw]

1. Detecting background

2. Guiding animation

3. Create freehand, tap to place

4. Create in Presets

The [Create] mode provides 2 ways to create a virtual mark: Draw and Presets. When users chooses to draw, there is a guiding animation leads users to draw free hand with the control of brush size and backward buttons. Once the drawing is finished, users can simply tap "Done" and then tap anywhere on the screen to place the marks they drew. The placed mark would automatically be placed on the shared map and seen by other users.