A3 Dual Screen Phone

Hisense's A2 phone provided an Android handset with an OLED screen on the front and an E-Ink screen on the back.

My Role

AVP of Product Design, Product Owner, Project Lead, Interaction Design Contributor

The Challenge

The Goal

Although the original model shipped with stellar hardware and spec, it received poor reviews and sales due to a very convoluted and disjointed user experience. Hisense reached out to my team to see if we could help improve the device's usability.

Completely redesign the E-ink functionality to best take advantage of the hardware and to simplify a confusing and potentially awkward form factor.

The Design

I guided my team through a full usability analysis on the device which inspired the design principles that would guide us moving forward

With the principles in place my team moved forward with a high level design strategy for the A2 Pro phone. I assembled a deck and travelled to China to present it to the Management team in Qindao.

Pleased with what they say, Hisense gave us the go ahead for the redesign.

The E-Ink screen needed to take advantage of the technology while still being very aware of its limitations. The approach needed to be very different than the approach used for an OLED screen.

Having a clear understanding of the technical constraints around E-Ink allowed for an optimized experience that preserved battery life instead of draining it. As with most of my projects, a UX Foundation Design was created to guide the design and ensure consistency.

I oversaw the creation of a flexible panel system that allowed used to create their own E-ink dashboards that took advantage of the technology's capabilities.

Having a solid understanding of a user's needs and expectations allowed for the creation of an intuitive and delightful experience that avoided the potential confusion and frustration that earlier models provided.

Many new and innovative features were added that greatly increased the usefulness of the E-ink screen.

A rich customizable widget based system allowed users to create their own e-ink dashboards.

And where earlier a lock screen obstructed the E-ink content, the widgets now handled privacy individually allowing for an E-ink screen that always provides useful and glanceable information, even when the battery was completely depleted.

The Result

Once released to market, the redesigned phone received rave reviews across China along with several awards including the China 2017 User Experience Award granted to my team and I.

Our completely revamped E-Ink experience was considered such a massive improvement, that it was also ported back to earlier models as well as their premium A2 Pro model.