What have wearable audio players been missing? What kind of player would music lovers love? One answer emerged from designer brainstorming and original Sony technology. The wearable W-Series Walkman has been a mostly successful product, but has had its problems in regards to reliability (moisture leaking into the player causing it to malfunction). Regardless of first generation faults, we think that the W-Series has a long term place in Sony’s Walkman line. In this interview with W-Series design team by Sony Design, we learn about this unique music player and how Zappin played a big role in its creation.
Komiyama: One product I helped design was Sony Active Style Headphones. I was later approached by someone in product planning who liked that work. He asked me to create a wearable Walkman in the same style, and that’s how it all began. As the saying goes, it was easier said than done especially this time. Many manufacturers including Sony have tried their hand at wearable audio players. But personally, I don’t know of any that are firmly established in the market.
It’s easy to guess why, because above all, they have been hard to use. People have had to fumble with these screenless players to find songs. If you have many tracks, your hand stays glued to the player as you hunt down the one you want. That much stress, and you forget how nice it is without the cords. People should enjoy wearable players, but designers have had a hard time ensuring usability. And the fact that potential users can’t choose their favorite headphones and have no recourse if they don’t like the fit or audio quality made people think twice.
That’s not our goal anyway, to have people occupied with the controls. The user experience must be much more enjoyable than squinting at a tiny display, trying to control the player. Once wearable players offer a better experience, people will appreciate their advantages. Here, the key is the user interface. So before our industrial design got underway, I approached Hiroshi in auditory UI design, a field where we approach usability from the standpoint of sound.
Sato: Never before in my experience had sound been so critical to easier operation. And this was not minimal usability, either; we were not compromising. Atsushi and I felt that we had to do something about the silence when listeners are finding tracks, which is “empty” without music. The more songs you have, the longer this blank, empty time is. Surely this is unacceptable, in a device designed for music entertainment. We discussed it at length, but it looked like we would never resolve it. Maybe Satoshi couldn’t bear to see us continue, or maybe we were just too distracting, but in any case, one day he leaned forward from his desk and suggested Zappin as a solution.
Asai: Zappin is a UI control I developed for car audio systems. It’s straightforward in operation. An excerpt of each track is played, one after another, until the song you want is played and you select it. In cars, this frees you from keeping your hand on the controls while driving and lets you focus on the road. Just twist the dial to start searching. But what inspired me to consider it for portable audio players was when I noticed myself constantly fidgeting with my Walkman during commutes. I thought Zappin might be an effortless way to control audio players.
When I overheard Atsushi and Hiroshi, I had a hunch we could use it. Sony has also developed 12-tone analysis technology, and together, the two technologies can extract exciting passages for shuffle playback. Sampling songs this way is also very common on music programs that count down the top hits. It’s like a brief introduction of the memorable passages, the highlights. In this respect, Zappin is growing beyond just a search function. Not only does it eliminate the silent, empty moments during searches, it keeps you entertained. That’s why you can also consider Zappin a new playback function. Enjoy it as a style of listening that reflects current trends.
Still, we faced some resistance even from within the company, from those who couldn’t seem to grasp the proposal. Critics pointed out how controls from the days of analog media still feel intimately familiar, and how enjoying tracks in their entirety is so ingrained in us. But if we compare the traditional style of listening to dining on a full-course meal, from appetizer to dessert, Zappin serves you the tastiest bite-sized morsels from a variety of main dishes. Both are enjoyable, and certainly it’s fine that people have their own preferences. To educate our colleagues, the designers took the initiative in development, gave demonstrations, and spent time talking with others until more people understood.
Sato: Zappin playback can be set to either short or long excerpts, and each mode gives a different impression. Short mode plays excerpts of about four seconds each, which really does feel like you’re enjoying a music countdown program. Long mode plays 15-second excerpts, and this gives the impression of listening to a DJ mix. Our aim was straightforward, but implementing it required deft sound design involving simulations of the listening experience.
Fujiki: Zappin fills in the blank periods for listeners. Seamless, constant playback was the goal, but sudden shifts in tempo or pitch between tracks would be unpleasant to listen to. We needed effective transitions, to prepare listeners for whatever sample comes next.
We studied a range of tones and spoken phrases as potential transitions. A key consideration here was the frequency band, or sense of pitch. Transitions at a distinctive pitch would be unsettling if they didn’t match the previous and next track excerpts. And the sound of transitions based on the musical scale would vary depending on the volume level. Our research led to a tone created from modified white noise. This tone gives no impression of pitch, and it sounds consistent regardless of the melody played before or after or changes in volume. Most important, it’s a neutral effect that doesn’t distract from Zappin playback.
After this, we considered how to have excerpts fade in and out nicely. In the crossfade between tracks, how could we handle the build-up and dissolve of transitions? Satoshi and I carefully fine-tuned the sound down to the level of tenths of a second, over the course of listening to several hundreds of tracks to sample the effect.
In design work that was clearer, we were careful to provide reassuring feedback for operations on this screenless player. During regular playback, the tones you hear assure you it’s a Walkman. During Zappin playback, you hear tones with a sense of speed. A benefit of the wearable format was that we could arrange the optimal sound for a specific set of headphones. In turn, we could seek a refined, high-quality auditory user interface.
Komiyama: With our user interface discussions underway, I finally got to work on industrial design. From the start, we sought a light, secure-fitting player, integrated in headphones connected by a spiral neckband. But it seemed as if something was missing, or we were taking development the wrong way. I couldn’t quell these nagging doubts. If we continued along these lines, I doubted the player would be anything more than a set of headphones, no matter how stylish it looked. People wouldn’t sense the potential of Zappin from the appearance. I was also concerned that it might be unclear how to wear the headphones, because of the spiral neckband. If it’s true to the Walkman tradition, anyone should intuitively know how to wear it correctly.
One day, a designer’s offhand comment led me in the right direction. Walkman players are clusters of various shapes, he said. And that’s accurate. Models to date have been simple conglomerations of flat and cylindrical parts. This observation inspired the flat surface you see when the left and right earpieces are magnetically linked.
When stored, the Walkman W maintains this classic, composite appearance. When worn, the two earpieces are split apart. This action of separating them has the strange effect of revealing to new users how to wear the player. And when the earpieces are joined, a magnetic sensor automatically pauses or stops playback. It makes sense, this chain of events from separating the earpieces to listen, wearing them, and joining them again when you’re finished. It’s not just a matter of styling; we orchestrated the way you use the device itself, the series of events from beginning to end.
Yamagishi: We want everyone to see what makes this model tempting. That’s why we took a slightly different approach for the color options. Normally, we narrow down the most fitting color options by considering several factors how old our target users are, trends in their lifestyles, and a sense of what they value, as well as product pricing and so on. But for this model, we drew inspiration for colors by imagining the scenes where listeners would be enjoying the Walkman.
We developed six versions, including the region-specific colors.* There’s a stylish model in black and subdued silver, accented with a red Walkman logo. Even if you’re wearing a business suit and listening to music on the way to work, this one adds a little polish without pretension. We chose a lime green version because it complements fashionable sportswear worn when you’re jogging or at the gym. Pink reflects the excitement of taking off on vacation, and it’s a little out of the ordinary. Violet and orange capture the sense of exhilaration you get before going to a club or somewhere for live music. The plain white version looks good in any situation, no matter what your taste in fashion.
As fluorescent colors, the vivid pink and lime green are unusual in a Walkman player. People familiar with Sony design may be a little unsettled by this styling, but we wanted to try something a little adventurous. The sense that something unprecedented and worth a closer look has arrived. The feeling you get when you try on something new and want to show someone. The power of music to exhilarate us. These are the feelings we’d love to convey. Another consideration was that once you separate the earpieces to wear them, each piece is actually quite small. Even colors that seem bold blend in surprisingly well, so don’t worry about choosing a vivid color if you like it.
*White, black, lime green, and pink are available in Japan.
Asai: In price, this model is closer to headphones than a portable audio player, despite the fact that we invested two years in refining the design since initial planning. It took that long because we started from nothing, with no inspiring models to learn from about listening styles in wearable audio players. Really, it felt as if we were groping in the dark in design, going around in circles. But ultimately, what helped us overcome this was the concerted effort of designers who simply can’t live without music, and our commitment to writing a new chapter in how people listen to music.
Sato: We might imagine listening styles to date as sitting in front of some iconic audio player, leisurely savoring every song. That’s obviously a wonderful experience, but we get the distinct impression that people are listening more casually now. And in fact, research shows that more younger listeners are satisfied just listening to the hooks or catchiest parts of songs. We thought it was time for Sony to examine and meet these needs in current listening trends.
In this way, the Walkman W series is a trailblazer. Wearable audio players are still a minor product category, but I think in this model we have rediscovered the Walkman design DNA. We turned challenges in usability into an opportunity to offer people an enjoyable new style of listening. Fewer needless features, and a more valuable user experience. I think that’s a quintessential quality of Walkman players.
Komiyama: In that heart-shaped band lie my hopes for the player. We’re seeing a huge shift in entertainment toward visual media. Rich video experiences are offered by more portable audio players, which boast higher performance and more features. At first glance, this makes a screenless model with extremely simple controls and features seem behind the times. But the more you use it, the more you enjoy being set free from annoying cords, and the more you appreciate the unique user interface. You get a taste of a listening experience found in no other player.
Imagine wanting to enjoy music, pure and simple, without anything in the way. Imagine a player designed with this in mind, to bring you a fresh listening experience and stir a sense of wonder. That’s a fundamental ideal in the Walkman series. The heart shape of the W series band is not there just to grab your attention. It represents our heartfelt commitment to get back to these basics.
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