AHEAD is a headphone audio enhancer that provides controls to combine different sound sources and displays visual feedback of your social availability.
Problem Space
Technology can act as a barrier to social interactions, sometimes unintentionally. In the case of headphones, they always reinforce antisocial behavior, whether that is intended or not.
Hypothesis
By adding control over how much environmental sound you listen to and intentionally showcasing one’s social availability, we can increase the level of context awareness and break social interaction barriers.
Objectives
- Add ambient noise to the headphones’ main sound streams by including a “synthesizer layered system.”
- Provide sound mixer control over different audio layers with the purpose of raising our environmental context awareness.
- Control the openness of your personal space and increase the possibilities of interaction by displaying social availability cues.
Key Features
Ahead provides control over two main features or interactions:
- Balance between what you’re listening to and the outside environment.
- Showing cues of your social availability to other people.
