EMIO
Deepening the experience of pregnancy through sounds
Emio is a concept that utilizes sound to help the partner feel more involved in the pregnancy. Parents can know hear when the baby is awake, asleep, kicks, moves and even when it has hiccups. These moments facilitate a deeper connection between partners as well as to the baby throughout the pregnancy journey.
Group project
2,5 weeks
2021 spring
Team
Mathilda Karlsson
Arvind Sushil
Sydney Eilbacher
Christoffer Ulrik Pedersen
This project is about designing sounds for a new product.
Watch a 2-minute video of the concept Emio
Pregnancy is a big experience that carries many emotions...
The mother has a natural connection to the baby as it grows — but what about her partner?
Research
Interviwes
= 9 people
The project were done remote due to Covid-19
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Quotes
How might we help the partner become more involved in the pregnancy and facilitate a deeper connection to their child before it is born?
Market research
We looked at existing solutions of how to see or hear the baby at home during the pregnancy. According to our desktop research, these products might leave people with a fake feeling of safety. Since they are rather difficult to use correctly especially without formal education.
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The at home medical devices are warned by experts, to be a ”fake safety.”
Products made for one individual to use.
Clinical & Medical CMF.
Difficult to use, without formal training.
Form research
We aimed for a more organic design language that is inviting, calm, and warm. Expressed in playful colors and has a soft material that's easy to clean.
Soft
Organic
Hygenic
We started out with early form explorations that then led to home-made play-doh, as a simple way of figuring out the size, how to hold or grip the product, and to ensure a two-person product. With enough room and space for two hands interacting at the same time.
We didn’t set out to create a medical device
Our goal was to design a deeper experience of pregnancy.
Sounds
Our earlier interviews highlighted the importance of creating sounds that were bound to reality, but not stuck in reality.
We decided to navigate between the realism and abstraction levels when developing our sounds.
We created a sound board to get a deeper understanding of the sounds for our product. Then we created the sounds our selfs in Vital and Adobe Audition.
Time envelope
Sound
Description
Association
Scenario
E M I O
Deepening the experience of pregnancy trough sound
Play sounds
We chose the soft triangular shape to represent the three people involved. The materials have a soft feel on the top and technical on the bottom to indicate where to hold and grip around the product.
We choose to have the speakers going around the product to mitigate the risk of blocking or skewing the sound.
