Shenzhen Xinfengtong, a long-term customer of IDC in the UK, contacted the IDC team again. This time the product is a large wearable health device in the medical and consumer electronics fields.
Through usability design, how to redefine the comfort of portable wearable products, and thus bring differentiated advantages to products, and enhance the value of products is the product innovation delivered by IDC team for enterprises in this project.
The working principle of this neck massage instrument is to send electrical pulses to the neck skin through 2 pieces of motor pads that contact the neck skin to stimulate the neck muscles and achieve the massage effect.
Similar products are not uncommon in the market. We purchased and tested various existing similar products and confirmed the interactive pain points of these products. We quickly concluded that the competitiveness of XFT's new products lies in the design of surpassing the performance of competing products.

We have studied:
Contact relationship between massage electrode and head and neck-contact surface
Relationship between lateral compression force and comfort of head and neck
How to effectively identify keys by touch and effectively control
Appearance form to the user's psychological impact

Contact relationship between massage electrode and head and neck
Many of the electrode designs of existing products on the market are transverse and concave/planar.
The curvature of the human head and neck is relatively complex, and the lateral arrangement will cause poor contact between the thinner head and neck and the electrode, while the lateral concave design is not friendly to the thicker head and neck.
Therefore, the electrode design of the new product adopts a compound surface shape that is upright, curved outward along the longitudinal axis and curved inward along the transverse axis, so that the device can follow the curvature of the user's neck in both directions and more comfortably and effectively conform to the neck.

Reduces compression on the side of the head and neck for improved comfort
The shape of the horseshoe-shaped product should follow the shape of the human neck as much as possible, and the pressure on both sides of the neck produced by the large arc curve is relatively small, and the fixing effect is not obvious. Therefore, a large area and thick cushion made of soft material (as shown in the blue model part) can make the head and neck feel comfortable while realizing the fixed massager.

Differentiated key design improves control effectiveness
Product interaction control is one of the optimization elements of the design. The product is used in the neck, and the user cannot see the buttons during operation. Therefore, the product can only be operated by touch. Through the huge fan-shaped area planned on the design, the button position is easier to find. The individual buttons are designed with concave and convex surfaces that can be easily distinguished by touch.
Based on the conclusions of the user tests, the design team successfully improved the form of the device to maximize comfort. At the same time, the design of the outer shell is more compact, which saves the storage space of the internal electronic components.

Appearance design to enhance product comfort, continue the brand design language
The design goals include the product's design language to present the XFT brand characteristics, so that the product can be easily identified as being from the XFT product family.
In addition, as a household product, it needs to convey comfort and relaxation. The IDC team chose a softer and more rounded form for the product.
The existing CMF is selected to enhance comfort. It gives users a soft skin-touch feeling; the smooth surface is easy to clean from dirt, and the design of the covering charging port further optimizes this element.

Specific design and development work:
Competitive Product Research
User research and insight discovery
Industrial Design
ergonomic optimization design
User Testing
Color, material and surface treatment
Rapid Prototyping
Electronics Layout Recommendations

Hand-drawn sketches of products to explore the direction of form

Draw a 3D CAD model

An internal prototype of the product helps the team explore and optimize ergonomics and form

User testing of product key position and shape recognition