Echo
Early 2026 / 3 Weeks / Umeå Institute of Design Course Project
Introduction
About
Today, store memories in large & overwhelming digital visual libraries, where moments risk loosing their meaning.
Echo explores storing & re-experiencing memories by removing visuals entirely, providing space for people re-experience memories through sound.
Group & Project Context
With Pola Kolodziej (interaction design), Rohith Rajesh Kumar (advanced product design) & Pascal Stappen (advanced product design).
Situated in a 3 week long university project, aimed to explore sound design.
My Role
Concept design, prototyping, physical interaction design, sound design, creative coding, digital design & user testing.
Echo encourages you and your loved ones to re-experience joy, nostalgia, harmony, sadness, melancholy and more all through sonic memories.
Observe
Observe a sonic environment you wish to capture, from the everyday like bird song when out on a walk, or a special family gathering over the holidays
Capture future memories
Capture the sonic environment with Echo's mobile app. Visually designed to align with the LED matrix of Echo's player.
Player & memory Collection
Echo is composed of the player and six physical collection pebbles housed in the collection library. The player & library are designed to be stacked on top of each other for safe storage when not in use.
Transfer your memories
Transfer your sonic memories to Echo’s collection pebbles. The app takes distinct inspiration from Echo’s physical visual design to support user’s mental model of which memories are synced to which collection pebble.
Re-discover memories in your collection
Sonic highlights of memories play when a collection pebble is placed in Echo. Not only helping you find the collection you'd like to sync or listen to, but supporting re-discovery memories you might have forgotten.
Playback your Memories
Echo was designed to fit comfortably on a coffee table or dining table to re-experience memories together with loved ones.
Switch Echo's outer dial to jump to the next / past sound memory. Spin Echo's inner dial to scrub sound memories.
Ambient playback
Toggle Echo's switch to playback in ambient mode. Ambient playback elevates the recording by overlaying a background soundscape.
The sonic memories are brought to the foreground using spatial effects, like reverb and a parametric EQ, blending them seamlessly into the ambient environment.
Choosing soundscapes in ambient playback
Rotate the inner dial to choose between varying soundscapes with different emotional intensities.
Proof of concept
Prototyped a proof of concept in Xcode (utilising Cursor, Claude Code & Codex) to test the feel of Echo's dial interactions & LED matrix, supporting design refinement
Creating Echo’s ecosystem
Exploring Echo's purpose was hand in hand to defining Echo's physical form & interactions.
Creating ambient background soundscapes in Logic then leading user feedback sessions to understand how these sounds might trigger different emotions in different people.
Prototyping tangible interactions in Xcode.
