Transparent Mask

#PPE-Design #DesignResearch #IndustrialDesign #PublicHealth

The Challenge

People living in poor air quality settings, such as cities in India or China, can suffer from an increased number of health consequences as a direct result from the air pollution.

This project’s goal was to propose a PAPR (powered air purifying respirator) mask that could be easily integrated and worn by professionals in India who spend most of their day working outdoors, such as police officers, rickshaw drivers, and street sweepers.

The design needed to be aesthetically appealing as well as transparent, in order to facilitate social connection between people, and still maintain clean air to the standard of passing the 3M respirator fit test.

What I Did

My Role: Industrial Designer

It was my role to provide industrial design services to the U-M research team who had started this project. More specifically, I proposed solutions that improved the aesthetic form, appeal, and usability of the team’s original prototype, and I also proposed new design concepts which were informed by human-centered design research, methodology, and process.

Project Duration

5 months

Main Stakeholders

University of Michigan Research Group involving the School of Medicine & the College of Engineering

Scroll through the image gallery below to learn more about my process.

  • Market research

    Understanding what solutions already existed, how they were successful, and how they could have been better, was crucial in understanding the problem-solution space as well as determining the potential of this project.

  • Interviews

    I conducted several interviews, gathering information about people’s mask-wearing experiences, to inform the design.

  • Product testing

    Part of our ethnographic research included testing out existing market solutions. We gathered data from testing several products, which informed our design requirements and specifications.

  • Ideation

    A key part of my role was to deliver new ideas to the team. I came up with over 50 new mask designs that either modified the existing design concept or proposed a new design direction.

  • Digital rendering

    My final deliverable to the team included three different versions of a transparent PAPR mask rendering, created with the use of Fusion 360 and KeyShot.

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