ioLight approached Airsource to develop the iPad application for their magnificent mobile microscope, a laboratory grade imaging device small enough to carry in your bag.
The microscope hardware would need to be controlled via the iPad app, giving users options for focus and positioning, and with the ability to stream live HD video over Wifi back to the device.
The world's most amazing portable microscope needs a compelling - yet straightforward - user interface, and that's what Airsource were tasked to deliver. Working closely with the ioLight team, we produced an experience that would keep support calls to a minimum and get microbes in focus.
The Airsource design team used ioLight's colour palette to come up with a set of simple and unobtrusive icons. They stay out of the way so you can get on with seeing cells or sand from the seashore.
Easy on-boarding was a critical consideration - users want to get up and running quickly - and the Airsource team designed and integrated a set of instructions which made that possible.
With the design still in it's early stages, we had to start by building and testing prototype microscope hardware to ioLight's specification. We then developed the embedded software, followed by the alpha iPad application, creating a custom streaming solution to handle the HD video.
When the final microscope was completed we were able to seamlessly incorporate our firmware and instantly test all aspects of the hardware, significantly accelerating the development of iolight's production version.
ioLight launched their digital microscope in 2016, and you can buy one for your classroom, lab or business from their website.
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