Speck Design announced today its collaboration with Google to create its latest invention, Project Tango, a tablet that combines camera vision and virtual surroundings into a seamless augmented reality. Project Tango is a mobile platform that captures, maps, and navigates human space and surroundings using 3D motion, computer vision, and depth sensing technology. Similar to the way that humans touch, see, and hear, Google’s tablet technology comprehends the world through size, distance, and temporal and spatial relationships.

Speck Design’s Intuitive Tablet Design Enhances User 3D Experience and Sensing Capabilities

Driving the industrial design and human factors for Project Tango, as part of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects Group (ATAP), Speck Design helped create a tablet design that integrates new hardware and software, including a sophisticated camera array and 3D imaging technology. Based on preliminary testing with potential users, Speck Design developed user-centric features around natural hand placement, landscape orientation, and an optimal camera angle for a full range of vision, thereby allowing users to see what’s in front of them, while simultaneously viewing the same image on their tablet screen. The result is an intuitive all-encompassing 3D experience with an accurate representation of the environment.

“At Speck Design, we view every product and service in the context of the complete experience,” said Elisa Jagerson, CEO and owner of Speck Design. “In designing a user-intuitive tablet experience for a new market, we needed to accurately imagine the user journey, and create for the environment in which the tablet will live.”

Featured at Google I/O 2014, Project Tango’s integration of computer vision into smart technology is opening the door to a new form of visual experience. The uses of the device are endless – from mapping a house for a home improvement project, to assisting the visually impaired with auditory cues.

“Having the opportunity to work on cutting edge technology at Speck Design, we were inspired by the innovation behind Project Tango to create an integrated tablet design that changes the way we interact with smart technology,” said Jason Stone, Senior Lead Industrial Designer at Speck Design, and design lead for Project Tango. “We designed a window into a new augmented world.”

About                         

Speck Design is an innovation engine of the new economy. The consultancy has generated billions in revenue for its clients by delivering superior product and stakeholder experiences for leading innovators, such as Apple, Google, Procter & Gamble, Tesla, Cisco, Petco, and PayPal. Speck Design delivers digital, physical, and contextual experiences from concept through to market in the consumer, healthcare, communications, cleantech, robotics, and automotive industries. Speck Design’s unfailing ability to create lasting tangible value for its clients lies in its pioneering Experience Engineering methodology. The company uniquely weaves together user insights, interaction design, communication design, and product design to deeply understand the market and create the most impactful solution.