01
Brand identity & principles
Aligned product and brand principles with the design team to set a shared foundation.
01 — Context
A 115-year-old brand with legacy in craftsmanship and audio — born in Japan, now extending into headphones.
The experience had to reflect that history and legacy, yet feel forward-looking and unafraid of technology. My job was to hold both at once.
After Denon acquired Nura, the PerL Pro app needed to move off inherited foundations and onto the requirements of the Denon brand identity and app experience.
Challenge
Honour a heritage of craftsmanship while building an experience that feels modern, premium and technically ambitious.
My Role
Lead product designer across UX, UI, motion and sound — aligning brand, hardware and engineering into one language.
Status
App in progress · Automotive HMI at concept · Visual language shipped and in use across surfaces.
02 — Scope
Six modalities.
One language.
One system extending across platforms and sensory experiences — a cohesive design language that stays recognisably Denon whether you see it, feel it, or hear it.
02
Visual language
One dot-grid, type scale and colour system applied consistently across every surface.
03
Mobile app
Led app design with engineering, hardware and spec teams on software alignment.
04
Motion
Behaviour and feel enhanced through product animation and app transitions.
05
Sound & voice
Led the sound and voice-prompt workstream for both product and brand experience.
06CONCEPT
Automotive HMI
Led concept work extending the system into the in-car interface.
03 — Audit & discovery
From re-skin
to redesign.
The PerL Pro app carried Nura's bones. My role was to redesign the UX, UI, animations and flows — turning a functional utility into a premium, personalised audio experience worthy of the hardware. But first I had to identify the issues through an audit, then validate my assumptions through user testing.
App audit
8 participants · 4 core friction points
01
Connection & pairing difficulties
A significant number of users struggled with pairing. Switching between Bluetooth settings and the app caused confusion and uncertainty about connection status.
02
Opaque profile-creation progress
The loading indicator during profile setup felt lengthy and unclear — users couldn't tell how long it would take or what stages it involved.
03
Feature demo fell flat
After profile creation, users wanted to hear the difference with their own music — the provided demo didn't showcase the feature's true value.
04
No volume control at first touch
During the initial feature introduction, several users reached for volume and couldn't adjust it — a small gap that soured the first impression.
VALIDATED
Eight moderated sessions on the existing, re-skinned Nura app, cross-checked against public feedback on the app stores. Every finding was pressure-tested before it shaped the redesign — assumptions in, evidence out.
04 — Process
Seven steps, from first session to developer handoff.
Understand and analyse produced the audit above. Everything after it turned those findings into flows, screens and a design system engineering could build from.
STEP 01
Understand
User testing sessions to uncover major and minor pain points in the existing, re-skinned Nura app.
STEP 02
Analyse
Testing results and online feedback analysed, and every major and minor point of improvement listed.
STEP 03
Identify & prioritise
Changes labelled, prioritised and taken into action.
STEP 04
Initiate
Major flows — sign up, setup and profile creation — created.
STEP 05
Refine & define
After aligning with internal stakeholders, screens were created, tested and built into a flow.
STEP 06
Validate
Finalising designs, adding the last touches and creating the animations.
STEP 07
Finalise & clean up
Design files tidied, with screens and components integrated into the design system and ready for development.
IN THE ROOM
Steps 03 and 04 ran in real time with PM, engineering and infrastructure — building flowcharts together, identifying technical no-go areas early, and exploring what was actually feasible before it reached high fidelity.
05 — Evolution
From an inherited utility to a personalised home screen.
BEFORE
Inherited from Nura — VEFA profile & immersion slider
1
2
-
1
Immersion slider buried the core value — the headline personalisation was hidden behind an abstract control.
-
2
No clear connection status — users couldn't confirm the earbuds were connected at a glance.
AFTER
Redesigned home — status, control & profile up front
1
2
3
-
1
Device status front-and-centre — live L/R battery removes all doubt about connection.
-
2
One-tap noise control — Cancellation · Off · Transparency, no digging through menus.
-
3
Sound profile promoted to a tappable, visual card — the personalisation finally feels premium.
BEFORE
Onboarding & connection
A dead end dressed as a screen. The only way back was Bluetooth settings — the switching that testing showed left people unsure whether they were connected at all.
AFTER
Guided pairing
Pairing is walked through in the app itself, with the case and button illustrated at each step and connection state shown continuously.
FIRST PASS
Profile creation · 0:20
The wait gets acknowledged and explained — the AAT mark, copy rotating through what the measurement is for, and stage text moving from "Running a quick measurement of your hearing…" to "Processing measurement…". The ring fills, but never says how far along it is.
RESOLVED
Profile creation · 0:10
The missing half of finding 02. A live percentage answers how long, the ring takes on the brand's organic form, and the whole sequence is half the length — 0:10 against 0:20.
06 — The app, end to end
One coherent flow — from first launch to the wrist.
Sign-in, account creation, device selection and the home experience share one visual system — and it carries cleanly onto the watch.
BEFORE
Inherited flow — account gate, a server wait, then device selection
AFTER
Redesigned flow — same five beats, one visual system
01
Sign in
02
Create account
03
Select device
04
Home & control
05
On the watch
07 — Visual language
One dot-grid, one type scale, one palette.
Typography
Aa
Archivo · Display & UI — 400 / 700 / 900
01 / Aa
Space Mono · labels & data
Signature motif
The dot-grid recurs across empty states, loading and personalisation — a quiet through-line for the whole system.
Ink#0B131A
Accent#ED4D33
Amber#FFA806
Mist#EAEDF1
Paper#F4F1EA
08 — Sound, voice & motion
The brand you hear and feel, not just see.
Sound & voice
Led the sound and voice-prompt workstream for both the product and brand experience — earcons, confirmations and a spoken guide through setup.
- VO"Get ready to connect."
- VO"Press the button on the case."
- VO"You're all set. Enjoy."
Motion
Behaviour and feel enhanced through product animation and app transitions — the personalisation orb, connection states and screen-to-screen continuity.
- Profile orb morph600ms · ease
- Connection pulseloop · 1.4s
- Sheet transition320ms · spring
09 — Automotive HMI
CONCEPT
Extending the system into the car.
The same language — type, dot-grid and sound — carried onto the in-car display, so the Denon experience stays continuous from ear to dashboard. Shown as a working interface at CES 2025.
Separate case study Denon Automotive Vision for the in-car experience10 — Post-launch reception
The same reviewers,
after the redesign.
The clearest read on whether the audit findings were the right ones: what the press said about the app before the redesign, and what they said about it after.
BEFORE
Review of the inherited app
As much as I like the app, it's not a polished experience. The app takes a loooong time to load.
AFTER
Review of the redesigned app
The app has a clean UI. You can adjust 'immersion', which basically narrows and widens the soundscape… it blew me away.
OUTCOME
Load time and the forced account gate were the two complaints the inherited app drew publicly — both traced directly to findings 01 and 02 in the audit.