Beats IxD : Closing the gap

Role
Strategy, Design Direction and UI / UX Design

Disciplines
Design Strategy
Design Specification
Digital Prototypes
Design System
Design Research

Year
2013 - 2017 (Consultant)
2017 - 2024 (Employee)

Awards
↳ 2021 - Beats Flex - Core77 Consumer Technology Award
↳ 2021 - Powerbeats Pro - Industrial Designers Society of America

Closing the Gap

The head of product marketing tasked us with defining what interaction design should be at Beats. The brand had the attitude, the influence, the headphones everyone wanted to be seen in — but once you pressed play, things weren’t always so smooth. Going wireless should have felt like magic; instead it often felt like a puzzle. Buttons became secret handshakes, pairing turned into a ritual, and clever ideas like Tap to Amplify on the Pill XL stumbled in execution. Our challenge was to create a framework that could transform brand attitude into product simplicity, and close the gap between what Beats promised and what users actually experienced.

Value to User = Value to Business

We interviewed Beats users around the world and spoke to internal stakeholders to understand both their frustrations and their joys. From this work, we shaped a mission on the product side: reduce the friction, cut the rituals, and get users to their music as quickly as possible. For the business, it meant being “Beats” about it — only launching when the product was truly ready for market. Looking ahead, it meant evolving what Beats stood for: simplicity and accessibility woven into every interaction, supported by best-practice UI patterns that allowed the brand to move forward without losing its edge.

Turning Insight into Action

We distilled these insights into a set of design principles and created a consistent interaction methodology across products, with the multifunction “b” button as the core of music and call control. We designed a scalable product definition framework that could flex across product typologies and audiences, giving product, marketing, and engineering the freedom to adapt while staying true to a unified Beats experience.
 
 

Designed into Every Product

Our principles only mattered if they could be felt in the products themselves. We embedded the new interaction methodology across the entire Beats lineup, ensuring consistency without sacrificing personality.

The multifunction “b” button became the anchor of control, giving users a familiar, reliable way to play, pause, and take calls across headphones, earbuds, and speakers. On Apple W‑chipped products, we used iOS proximity pairing, while on Beats‑chipped products we enabled both Android Fast Pair and iOS proximity pairing. We streamlined pairing and control flows to eliminate unnecessary steps and make wireless feel effortless. For newer form factors, we applied the framework flexibly — adapting interaction patterns to fit each audience while still preserving a sense of “Beats” in every tap, click, or press.

This product-level execution meant that no matter which Beats device you picked up, the experience felt immediate, intuitive, and unmistakably part of the same family.

Products Launched

2025      —      Powerbeats Pro 2

2024      —      Beats Pill (Gen. 2)

                         Beats Solo Buds

                         Beats Solo 4

2023      —      Beats Studio Pro

2024      —      Beats Studio Buds+

2021       —      Beats Fit Pro

2021       —      Beats Studio Buds

2020      —      Beats Flex

2019      —       Powerbeats Pro

2024      —      Beats Solo Pro

2017       —      Beats Studio 3 Wireless

2024      —      Beats X

2016       —      Beats Solo3 Wireless

2015       —      Beats Pill+

2014      —      Beats Solo2 Wireless

                         Powerbeats2 Wireless

2013      —      Beats Studio Wireless

                         Beats Pill XL

                         Beats Pill 2.0

UX Definition

“We start with music and work backwards to headphones”

— Luke Wood, Former President of Beats by Dre

Proof in the experience

The impact of this work was immediate and lasting. By codifying interaction design at Beats, we gave both users and the business a new baseline: consistency, clarity, and confidence in every product. Reviewers began to highlight usability and simplicity as defining traits of the Beats experience. One-tap pairing made setup feel effortless, controls were called intuitive, and the overall experience was described as seamless and accessible. Users spoke to comfort and stability in everyday use, reinforcing that Beats products were not only desirable but easy to live with.

Beats evolved from a brand that was culturally iconic but occasionally clunky, into one which continues to be recognized for being both aspirational and intuitive.