Bond heart

Designing the app experience behind a wearable that lets people share their Heartbeat

Due to NDA restrictions, some of the work presented here cannot be fully disclosed. The images displayed are publicly available references. Please contact me if you'd like to learn more about my contribution.

Overview

Bond Heart Necklace is a smart necklace that allows people to share their heartbeat with someone they care about. Through the mobile app, users can record, store, and send heartbeats, creating an intimate physical connection across distance.

I joined the projectas a Freelacer when the product was already in development, to review the existing app experience for both Android and iOS and help refine it for launch. I redesigned key flows, introduced new features including the Heartbeat Library, and collaborated with engineers to finalize the product before launch.

Role: Product Designer - Freelancer

Timeline: 3 months

Industry: Innovation

My contribution

During the project, I worked on improving the product experience and delivering key features that helped shape the final app.

My main contributions included:

Conducting a design review of the existing app
Redesigning key user flows
Designing the Heartbeat Library
Creating the onboarding experience
Designing the record → save → share heartbeat flow
Collaborating with an illustrator to create onboarding visuals
Working closely with developers to implement the designs
Creating prototypes used for marketing and launch materials

The challenge

The core concept of the product is simple and emotional:

Record your heartbeat and share it with someone you love.

Users record their heartbeat through the mobile app, store it in their personal library, and send it to the necklace where it can be physically felt by the recipient.

But behind this simple interaction, the app needed to support several functional requirements:

recording heartbeats
saving recordings
replaying meaningful moments
sending them to the wearable
managing multiple heartbeats

The challenge was designing a system that supports these features without making the experience feel technical or complicated. The experience needed to remain intimate, personal, and effortless.

Reviewing the existing experience

When I joined the project, the app already existed in an early stage. My first step was conducting a design review to identify usability and interaction improvements.

Navigation complexity

Users needed too many steps to access recordings.

Lack of organization

There was no clear way to manage multiple heartbeats.

Visual inconsistency

UI elements lacked consistent hierarchy.

Emotional tone

The interface needed to better reflect the emotional nature of the product.

Core user flow

The core experience revolves around recording and sharing a heartbeat. I mapped the existing flow to identify friction points and opportunities for improvement. Mapping this flow helped identify opportunities to simplify interactions and improve usability.

Key steps

Create your profile

Select the person you want to send your heartbeat

Record your heartbeat

Customize your heartbeat

Send your heartbeat

Turning heartbeats into memories

One of the key improvements I designed was the Heartbeat Library. Instead of treating recordings as temporary actions, the library allows users to store and revisit meaningful moments.

Design goals included:

making recordings easy to browse
encouraging users to revisit past moments
keeping the interface simple and personal

This feature transformed heartbeats into a collection of memories, becoming a central part of the product experience.

Designing the onboarding experience

Because the product combines a physical device and a mobile app, onboarding was critical to help users understand how the experience works. To make the experience more engaging and approachable, I collaborated with an illustrator who created custom visuals for each onboarding step.

I designed the step-by-step onboarding flow that introduces:

the concept of sharing heartbeats
how the necklace connects to the app
how to record and send heartbeats

My role included:

defining the onboarding flow
designing the screen structure
working with the illustrator to integrate the visuals
ensuring the experience felt clear and emotionally engaging

The result was a guided onboarding experience that helps users quickly understand the product’s core interaction.

Refining the recording and sharing experience

In addition to new features, I refined the main interaction flow.

This included improvements to:

Recording

clearer interaction steps

better feedback during recording

Saving

simple confirmation after recording

seamless transition to the library

Sharing

intuitive interaction for sending heartbeats to the necklace

clearer connection between the app and the wearable device

These refinements helped create a smoother relationship between the mobile app and the physical product.

Prototypes for product launch

Besides product design, I created high-fidelity prototypes that were used by the marketing team to demonstrate the product experience. They were used in marketing visuals and product launch videos, like the videos I shared here.

These prototypes helped illustrate:

the heartbeat recording interaction
how heartbeats are sent to the necklace
the emotional connection created by the product

Final product

The following video shows the final product experience, demonstrating how the mobile app and the Bond Heart Necklace work together to record, store, and share heartbeats. It highlights the core interactions designed during the project and how they translate into the physical product experience.

Outcome

During the three-month collaboration, the mobile experience was significantly refined, and key features such as the Heartbeat Library and onboarding were introduced. The work delivered during the project helped shape the product experience used today.

Designing for an emotional product requires balancing functionality with human connection. The goal wasn’t just enabling interactions, but supporting meaningful moments between people.

This project also reinforced the value of close collaboration between design and engineering, especially when working within a fast-moving product launch.