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Soteria · AR mask + command tablet · 2025

A mask for firefighters, and the research that decided what goes inside it.

Red Dot winner 2026

IDEA 2026
Finalist

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01 · AR screen

The visor is the screen.

Thermal view, navigation and team data sit in the firefighter’s line of sight, inside the smoke.

02 · Thermal toggle

One button, gloves on.

Thermal view when you need it, off when you don’t. The commander can switch it from the tablet too.

03 · LED / radar module

A light and a scanner, above the eyes.

An LED flashlight and, in concept, LiDAR: map the space and pick out people’s outlines through smoke.

Inside the mask

  1. Inside the mask · concept stage

    Everything we could have shown a firefighter.

    Our concept layout: vitals, a 3D map, radio transcription, an AI column, and thermal always on.

  2. Cut 1

    Body vitals went to the commander.

    Heart rate and body temperature left the mask for the tablet. Thermal became a toggle: the orange button.

  3. Cut 2

    So did the radio text.

    Transcription moved to the tablet, with frequency tabs. The AI column went with it.

  4. What stays on

    Air, battery, your crew, a compass.

    Peripheral and readable at a glance, which is what the firefighters asked for.

  5. Then it speaks up

    One line from command.

    The mission brief arrives, then tucks itself out of the way.

  6. Victim detection

    A person, found through the smoke.

    Boxed in magenta, locked to where they are, not to the screen.

  7. Heat + hazards

    Heat in red, hazards hatched.

    Marked before you walk into them.

  8. The one time it shouts

    Imminent collapse. Evacuate.

    The view flips to thermal and the nearest exit lights up.

  9. Colour first

    Yellow means low, before anything says so.

    Air drops toward 1,900 PSI and turns yellow, your bar with it. The way out is drawn on the floor.

Soteria · Case study · 2025 · Red Dot Design Concept Award 2026 · IDEA 2026 Finalist

Deciding what not to show a firefighter.

Crews inside a fire and commanders outside it work from cluttered radio and no shared picture. Interviews with seven Savannah firefighters showed the real problem was cognitive overload, so we designed Soteria to show less.

Role
UX research lead on a team of five
Timeline
10 weeks, Fall 2025 · SCAD UXD 415
Team
Hyunsoo Eun (project lead), Xirun Zhou (UI/UX lead), Mahek Sewani (visual design & branding), Zhenghao Zhang (prototype lead) and me
Methods
Secondary research (NFPA, NIST), interviews with 7 firefighters, affinity mapping, journey mapping, card sort, field test at a fire station

01

What it is

View from inside the Soteria mask in a smoky corridor: a red collapse warning, a green exit marker, air and battery on the left, team status bottom left.

The mask, for the crew inside

Thermal view, navigation and team data in the field of view, with collapse warnings when they matter.

The On Scene screen on a rugged tablet: live POV feed, floor plan with crew positions, AI task cards, vitals, radio channels. Names blurred.

The tablet, for command outside

Live crew positions on a 2D/3D building map, vitals, a POV feed and AI-suggested next actions.

02

My part

I was the research lead on a team of five. A teammate modelled the mask, and I didn’t design the screens; I decided what they had to be true to.

  • FramingOwned the problem framing and the How Might We statements, cut from five at midterm to three for the final.
  • EvidenceGrounded the concept in real injury and cost data (NFPA, NIST) instead of assumptions.
  • InterviewsSeven Savannah firefighters in two sessions, a 4-year advanced firefighter to a 23-year captain. I did the outreach to firefighters and led the interviews and much of the observation.
  • Synthesis500+ raw data points on an affinity wall, a shift mapped from dispatch to debrief, a card sort for the tablet’s navigation. I did most of the affinitizing.
  • Field testTook one script and three tasks to Fire Station 3 so firefighters, not us, could answer “does this feel like too much?” I led it.

03

What we found

  • Interview · Savannah firefighter

    Critical transmissions on the radio can be hard to hear… radio traffic gets very cluttered and you end up missing things.

    The affinity wall traced the visibility and radio complaints to one root cause, cognitive overload. So we stopped adding tools and aimed to cut the load.

  • Field test · Fire Station 3 · 5 testers

    2 of 5 testers said the system wasn’t simple. Turning on one firefighter’s thermal view from the tablet exposed hierarchy confusion.

    The tablet’s structure didn’t match how command works, so we rebuilt it: unit first, then firefighter, then mask settings.

04

What changed

We stopped calling Soteria an AR mask and started calling it a cognitive load management system, and that changed what we built.

Red Dot + IDEA
Red Dot Design Concept Award 2026, and an IDEA 2026 finalist (IDSA’s International Design Excellence Awards). Won as a team of five.
5
Changes to the prototype after one round of field testing at Fire Station 3.
500+ → 1
Raw data points from seven firefighters, traced to one root cause: cognitive overload.