GoPro, makers of the best-selling HD Hero video camera, turned to Swim to design the UI for their subsequent cameras, the HD Hero2 and Hero3. The Hero2 was the first GoPro camera to incorporate a bitmap display; earlier cameras utilized a highly-constrained, segmented LCD.
Working closely with GoPro teams in the U.S. and Asia, Swim delivered all aspects of the new user interface. Swim produced comprehensive behavioral specifications and flows that defined all UI states, and developed a strategy for delivering these specifications effectively to the development teams. Swim worked with the display’s constraints — monochromatic and quite small — to devise a visual strategy that is readable, extensible and intuitively controlled by only two buttons (power and shutter). Swim developed all screen layouts, bitmap elements and iconography, and established visual guidelines for different screen types.
The new interface has been praised by reviewers and users as “MUCH easier to navigate through” and “[usable] without ever looking at the user manual”.
