Scent-Enabled Media Mobile App
Designing a mobile creation tool for adding custom digital scents to media using OVR's ION3 scent-emitting hardware.
Updated in 2026: Now an interactive prototype. I rebuilt my original design as a working prototype using AI-assisted development.
I contracted with Fair Worlds to design a mobile application for their client OVR (Olfactory Virtual Reality), which was preparing to introduce its ION3 scent-emitting hardware at CES 2023.
The ION3 contained eight base scent materials that could be mixed into custom digital scents. The companion app allowed users to create those scents, attach them to specific moments in media, control their intensity, and play the resulting scent-enabled experience through the hardware.
The product was intended for both iOS and Android, with the iOS version built first for the CES demonstration. I worked directly with a Unity developer throughout the core build, designing the interface and collaborating closely on interaction behavior as both the product and hardware experience rapidly evolved.
I joined after some initial screens and icon concepts had been created, when Fair Worlds determined that its primary designer would not have enough time to take on the project.
From there, I became the product designer working directly with a single Unity developer on the application.
- Reworked and expanded the initial interface into the application used for CES
- Designed the media timeline and scent-editing interactions
- Designed workflows for creating scents from eight base scent materials
- Designed controls for placing scent events at specific moments in media
- Designed intensity controls for individual scent emissions
- Worked through terminology for an unfamiliar product and interaction model
- Designed playback, save and load behavior, menus, dialogs, and supporting interactions
- Designed social and sharing features intended for later development
- Built a reusable component system to support rapid product changes
- Created interactive prototypes to communicate behavior
- Worked directly with the Unity developer on detailed interaction behavior and implementation
- Used mobile and Material Design conventions where appropriate to support a consistent future experience across iOS and Android
- Met regularly with Fair Worlds leadership, including the CEO, and OVR's scent specialists
- Adapted the product rapidly as requirements changed through those discussions
- Received additional design feedback from another Fair Worlds designer in an advisory role
The application needed to make an unfamiliar concept understandable: adding digital scent to media.
OVR's hardware contained eight base scent materials that could be mixed to create new scents. Those created scents could then be triggered at particular moments while media played, with the intensity of each emission controlled through the application.
Even discussing the product required establishing terminology. A base scent material, a custom mixture of those materials, and an individual emission of that mixture were related but different concepts. Part of the design work was determining how the interface should describe those objects and actions clearly.
Timing introduced another unusual problem. Triggering the hardware at a particular moment did not mean a person would necessarily perceive the scent at precisely that instant. Breathing, airflow, and the movement of scent through physical space affected when it was actually experienced.
At the same time, the product was moving quickly toward a fixed CES deadline. Major requirements could change during stakeholder meetings, making flexibility in both the interface and the design files essential.
Translate scent into a digital interaction model
There were few established conventions for authoring scent-enabled media, but the underlying task had parallels with existing creative tools.
A timeline provided a natural way to represent media progressing through time and scent events occurring at particular moments. I used conventions from audio and video tools where they helped make the interaction understandable without importing the complexity of professional editing software.
Users could create a scent from mixtures of the eight base materials, place that scent at a particular point in the media, and determine the intensity of its emission.
The result connected an unfamiliar output, scent, to familiar concepts of media playback, sequencing, and editing.
Establish a language for the product
One unexpected design problem was simply determining what to call things.
The hardware contained base scent materials. Those could be combined into created scents. Those scents could then be emitted at particular points in a piece of media.
Those distinctions could become confusing even in conversations among the people building the product, so interface language needed to help users understand the relationship between the materials, the scents they created, and the scent events attached to media.
Terminology therefore became part of the interaction design rather than something applied after the workflows were complete.
Design the timeline as an interaction, not just a visualization
The timeline needed to communicate where scent events occurred, but I also wanted manipulating it to feel direct and responsive.
Users could scrub the timeline whether media was playing or paused. When a user quickly threw the timeline during playback, it could move with that gesture before catching back up and returning to normal playback speed and direction.
At the end of the timeline, users could pull beyond its boundary. The timeline would move away from the edge and then spring back into position, providing a physical sense of reaching its limit rather than simply stopping.
These behaviors were small details, but they helped the interface feel like something users were directly manipulating rather than a collection of static controls.
Later, while watching video from CES, I saw a presenter repeatedly pull the timeline past its endpoint just to watch it bounce back. It was not formal usability evidence, but it was a satisfying indication that an interaction deliberately designed to feel enjoyable was having that effect.
Build for constant change
The product was changing rapidly.
I met regularly with Fair Worlds leadership and OVR's scent specialists, and those conversations could result in substantial changes to the application. Maintaining separate copies of interface elements across many screens would have made those changes increasingly difficult to manage.
I therefore proactively built the interface from reusable components. When a control or pattern changed, I could update the component rather than manually correcting every instance across the application.
The component system was not an additional deliverable layered onto the project. It was a practical response to the speed at which the product itself was evolving.
Work directly with development
I worked closely with a single Unity developer throughout the build.
That collaboration was particularly valuable for behaviors involving movement, playback, state, and physical response. We could discuss the nuances of an interaction, see how it behaved in the working application, and refine it together rather than relying entirely on static specifications.
The developer had access to the ION3 hardware, while I did not personally have a unit. Through our collaboration I could understand how the device behaved, including hearing its emissions during testing and discussing the relationship between triggering a scent and actually perceiving it.
This meant I needed to design around the behavior of physical hardware I could not directly test myself, making close communication with the developer and OVR team especially important.
Design toward multiple mobile platforms
The broader product was intended for both iOS and Android, although the iOS implementation was prioritized for CES.
I used established mobile conventions, including Material Design patterns where they provided a clearer or more streamlined interaction that could translate consistently between platforms.
The goal was not to make the iOS version feel unnecessarily platform-specific when the same product architecture would later need to extend to Android.
Consider the experience beyond creation
The longer-term concept extended beyond creating a scent-enabled video for yourself.
I designed social features around sharing created scents and scent-enabled scenes with other people. These features were not connected for the CES version, but they helped establish how the application could evolve from a hardware demonstration into a broader media experience.
Timeline and playback conventions gave users an existing mental model for understanding when scents would occur without requiring them to first learn an entirely new authoring system.
Creating a scent from the eight base materials and emitting that scent at a particular point in media were different actions. Making that distinction understandable helped clarify both the product terminology and its interaction model.
Timeline momentum, playback behavior, and boundary feedback were designed intentionally rather than treated as implementation details. Small behaviors such as overscrolling and springing back helped make manipulation feel responsive and enjoyable.
The component system allowed me to make substantial interface changes without manually updating many copies of the same controls. Componentization was therefore directly connected to the realities of the project rather than simply being a design-system exercise.
The immediate priority was a functioning iOS demonstration for CES. At the same time, I considered the intended Android version and designed future social and sharing functionality without making those features dependencies for the CES build.
The iOS application was completed for CES 2023 and used with OVR's ION3 hardware to demonstrate scent-enabled media.
Users could experience media with scent triggers and create new scents from the device's eight base materials, then attach those scents to moments in media to create new experiences.
The application and hardware were successfully demonstrated at CES, giving OVR a working experience through which it could introduce the ION3 and the concept of digital scent-enabled media.
Because this was a rapidly developed technology demonstration rather than a conventional consumer launch, I did not have post-launch product metrics or formal usability results.
Short promotional video for the project that explains a bit of the concept
How I Built It
I returned to this project in 2026 to explore how far I could take my original Figma designs using AI-assisted development. Working with Claude Code, I rebuilt the interface as a functional native iPhone prototype and created a web-based version that visitors can now try.
The prototype includes a working timeline, playback controls, an eight-tube scent mixer, and the main application screens. I defined the interaction behavior, worked through the rules for sequencing scents, and tested the native version on my phone, correcting both visual and functional problems along the way.
The prototype isn't connected to OVR's hardware. On-screen scent badges stand in for the physical device, allowing the interactions and sequencing behavior to be demonstrated without producing actual scents.
I also conducted AI-simulated persona reviews from several perspectives, including first-time visitors, scent scientists, and experienced UX designers. My own testing and the simulated reviews surfaced issues with touch behavior and unclear explanations, while an accessibility contrast check led to color changes. These simulated reviews were exploratory evaluations, not real user research.
The result is a working reconstruction of my original design, separate from the application developed for the original client. It gave me a way to revisit the design, evaluate its interactions, and demonstrate how I approach AI-assisted implementation.
Sample video: Pexels. Sound effects: Freesound (CC0).
Explore the working timeline, scent mixer, playback controls, and app navigation in your browser.
This project reinforced that designing for emerging technology often means designing the language and mental model of the product at the same time as the interface. When even the team building something needs to clarify what different objects and actions should be called, terminology becomes a fundamental interaction-design problem.
It also reinforced the importance of designing behavior rather than only screens. Working directly with the Unity developer let us refine movement, feedback, playback, and responsiveness in ways that were difficult to fully communicate through static designs.
The rapidly changing requirements also demonstrated the practical value of component-based design. Building reusable pieces early gave me the flexibility to respond to major product changes without allowing the design files to become unmanageable.
Finally, the project reinforced that usability is not only about reducing friction. Particularly in creative and interactive products, small details in movement and response can affect whether an interface merely works or is genuinely enjoyable to use.