Cisco 730 Headset

Designed for work, life and the journey in between.

This premium on-ear headset is developed for use inside and outside work, featuring adaptive noise cancellation, a beam forming mic array for the best possible call quality with all day comfort.

Supporting Designer to Naoki Shimada, Lead.

Red Dot 2020 winner | US Patent D920955

Launched 2019 | Product Page

Leadership Otto Williams

Modern Problems

require modern solutions

A global, hybrid workforce has made everywhere a meeting location: from open-plan offices and train cabins to the humble kitchen table. A single headset that is versatile enough to handle every use case without compromise is the goal.

Boom headsets sound great on calls and look like call-center gear everywhere else. Consumer headphones look right everywhere and sound thin on calls.
Nobody had closed that gap.

Lofty Goals

Objectives

Create a mixed use headset that can be used for work and leisure.
Maintain compact on ear sizing for ease of portability and a distinct identity in a crowded segment.
Deliver best in class comfort for extended use times
Accessories that showcase the identity of the headset

Over-ear Performance in an On-ear Form factor

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An on-ear form factor is hugely more portable, but sound quality and isolation suffer.
We sought to fix this with an over-ear class 40mm driver and world-class active noise cancellation with the highest possible call quality.

Best

of the Best

Voice Clarity
Patented voice honing captures every detail with AI activation

Adaptive Noise Cancellation
Modal scenarios provide best in class isolation

Acoustic Reference
Oversized 40mm driver and DAC provide best in class audio

How People feel:

Amazon Business: 4.2/5 ‍ ‍

TechRadar: 9/10 ‍ ‍

CDW: 4.8/5 ‍ ‍

B&H: 4/5 ‍ ‍

Power

Within

A large, waveguided, beam forming ECM mic defined identity and is the secret to the best possible speech pickup.

Head First

All day Comfort is the Goal

I created a methodology to convert Human Factors feedback and metrics with hands on testing to define comfort parameters & create an objective evaluation process that gives solid areas for the team to narrow and iterate on.

5 Pillars of Comfort

These 5 interconnected attributes helped ground the testing into quantifiable, objectively measurable data that could be correlated to user’s subjective ratings.

An Example:
Correlation is Key. Simple changes to curvature of arms or material thickness of the headband have been implications in perceived comfort amongst a select range of head sizes.

Best in class
Isolation &
Stability

Trust the Numbers

This dataset from the final PVT units highlights the process’ success with a balanced headset that is stable, yet comfortable for a work day, without major fatigue. Several rounds of test were carried out at each prototype stage with feedback informing the next. Competitive benchmarking was also carried out to gauge performance validity.

3X reduction
in Clamping
Force

2.5- 97.5 percentile
coverage
for everyone

8 hour comfort
wear time, from
initial 2 hours

Color is

Human

Inspired by the work of Angelica Dass on creating a palate for humanity, bespoke colors were created to work on everyone. while respecting our Brand ‍Identity.

Warm
Inclusive
Neutrality
Approachable

Monument

to Silence

The goal for the Charging Dock design is to create a pedestal that highlights the Headset. All sides are zero draft to create a pure, quiet form that creates a sense of solidity and harmony with it’s baseplate.

Counterweight is exposed where

Function is the form

Flat packed to minimize package size for

Efficiency

Defining

Sounds

My contributions came into play on the ideation + detailing phase in integrating the mic pickup areas and headband.

Baseline form and assumptions

Concept

Refined DVT

Reduced bulk, refined comfort

Details are everything, from how the texture of buttons feel to the surface behavior when ports come into play

Ultimate

Minimalism

Pre Pilot

Finalized details, comfort and CMF

Several rounds of tooling iteration resulted in the desired zero draft appearance.

The dock’s primary aim was to be as minimal as possible, to that we developed a zero draft process to have perfect symmetry and alignment between the base and body.

But Wait!
How can we take this to the next level?

See the Future Here!

Small Changes

Big Impacts

Major points of improvement arise on the headset based on the current model’s limitations. The dock is also more fully featured as a companion device.