BACK

Live Website

OVERVIEW

HIGHLIGHTS

BRIEF

RESEARCH

PROBLEM

PROCESS

SOLUTION

WHAT'S NEXT?

TAKEAWAYS

Experimental

Product Design

halo: Your Social Sixth Sense

OVERVIEW

Networking is hard, not because people don't want to connect, but because reading a room is genuinely exhausting. halo (yes it's lowercased) is a smart contact lens that does that reading for you, turning body language, eye contact, and posture into ambient cues that make social spaces feel less like a guessing game.

TIMELINE

3 DAYS

ROLE

Lead Product Designer

MY TEAM

Yuriko Zheng

Yoonseo Jeong

Liya Yan

TOOLS

Figma

After Effects

Audition

TIMELINE

3 DAYS

MY TEAM

Yuriko Zheng

Yoonseo Jeong

Liya Yan

ROLE

Lead Product Designer

TOOLS

Figma

After Effects

Audition

HIGHLIGHTS

BRIEF

Design a new technology concept connected to one of the 33 human senses. One that doesn't exist yet, but feels like it should.

The challenge wasn't just technical imagination, it was finding a sense that was underserved, deeply human, and solvable through design. Most senses had obvious applications.

MY ROLE

Product Design Lead

Concept · Workflow · Design direction · AR interface · Prototyping

Concept & Direction

Defined the product from scratch

Originated the social proprioception insight. Set the product direction, visual language, and overall tone.

UX & workflow

Mapped the end-to-end experience

Defined the information architecture and user journey across all screens from onboarding through post-event reflection.

Prototyping & AR

Owned the craft layer, start to finish

Built the first interactive prototype, then returned to finalize the AR interface including overlay design, motion, and interaction details.

RESEARCH

What is Social Proprioception?

Proprioception is your body's ability to sense its own position in space without looking. You don't look at your feet. You just know where they are.

Social proprioception is that same sense applied to a room full of people, the pre-verbal awareness of who is open, who is closed off, and when it feels natural to approach.

46%

Professionals report anxiety in unstructured networking.

Eye contact, Posture, and Body orientation

Top 3 non-verbal signals

Assistive tools exist for social approachability in real time.

THE GAP

Social proprioception is real, measurable, and learnable, but no tool has ever been designed to support it.

PROBLEM

How can we navigate social signals in real time without feeling watched, or making others feel surveilled?

The coordination, trust, and decision-making that groups need all happen outside the product, in texts and spreadsheets.

REAL WORLD CONSTRAINTS

PRIVACY

Who is being watched, and by whom?

AI sensing behavior creates immediate distrust.

Opt-in only: halo activates within joined events, never passively.

PRIVACY

Who is being watched, and by whom?

AI sensing behavior creates immediate distrust.

Opt-in only: halo activates within joined events, never passively.

COGNITIVE OVERLOAD

More data is overwhelming.

Live overlays risk adding anxiety, not reducing it.

Every element sits at the edge of attention, informing without demanding.

COGNITIVE OVERLOAD

More data is overwhelming.

Live overlays risk adding anxiety, not reducing it.

Every element sits at the edge of attention, informing without demanding.

SIGNAL ACCURACY

Social signals are not facts.

Treating cues as conclusions erodes trust fast.

Indicators signal possibility, and never label a person.

SIGNAL ACCURACY

Social signals are not facts.

Treating cues as conclusions erodes trust fast.

Indicators signal possibility, and never label a person.

PROCESS

72 hours. No time to plan, just build.

Scope the screens

Listed every screen the product needed and the job it had to do.

Scope the screens

Listed every screen the product needed and the job it had to do.

Prototype in Figma Make

Fed the structure into Figma Make using Claude to generate detailed prompt the first round of screens rapidly.

Prototype in Figma Make

Fed the structure into Figma Make using Claude to generate detailed prompt the first round of screens rapidly.

Analyse the flow

Used the prototype itself to identify gaps, missing states, and where the experience broke down.

Analyse the flow

Used the prototype itself to identify gaps, missing states, and where the experience broke down.

Refine

Iterated on what didn't work and tightened the visual layer on top.

Refine

Iterated on what didn't work and tightened the visual layer on top.

FIGMA MAKE PROTOTYPING

View full wireframe journey

SOLUTION

Introducing halo.

An app connected to your lens that prepares you before the event, guides you through it, and helps you grow after.

Onboarding

Introduction

A brief slideshow walks new users through what halo is and how the lens works before asking anything of them.

Profile Setup

Users add their name, title, and links, then select their interests. halo uses this to surface relevant people at events.

Prescription Lenses

For users with prescriptions, an auto-configure option detects and adjusts the lens to their vision automatically.

Lens Setup & Event

Lens Settings

Customize signal intensity, profile visibility, interest matching, and gesture-based card sharing before entering an event.

Join an Event

Scan a QR code, enter a provided code, or select a public event to check in.

Detect Proprioception

Once the lens is on, halo scans the surrounding environment and prepares to display live social cues.

Dashboard

AR Event View

During the event, the lens helps identify who may be open to conversation and where they are in the space.

Event Summary

After the event, halo shows a summary of interactions and overall social experience.

Growth Dashboard

Review approach rate, new connections, and personal milestones tracked across past events.

Profile Page

Edit or share your profile, and monitor lens battery status from one place.

WHAT'S NEXT

Some deep dives..

Spatial Navigation

How can halo extend beyond reading people to helping users navigate the space itself?

Privacy

How can the interface (not just the technology) be designed to earn user trust from the first interaction?

Social Features

What features would encourage users to carry the confidence they built at an event into their everyday social life?

Stay tuned for future upgrades! :D

TAKEAWAYS

Design is not a one way street.

VRBO solves finding a place, but not planning the trip.

Constraints make better products.

Designing under ethical constraints pushed every decision toward clarity. halo became more considered, not less capable, because of the tension it had to live within.

Concept clarity speeds up execution.

When the insight is sharp, everything else follows faster. Naming the idea precisely made it easier to design, communicate, and defend.

AI tools reward intentional prompting.

The quality gap between a vague prompt and a structured one was significant. AI is a collaborator , so it performs better when you give it real direction.

Thanks for viewing! If you want the whole case study, email me at yuriko_zheng@fitnyc.edu :)