Designing the new hudl2 for Tesco

Product design

Then hudl2 has been designed by Chauhan Studio in collaboration with Tesco head of hardware product development Keith Metcalfe.

Chauhan Studio creative director Tej Chauhan says: “We wanted to create a beautiful object that conveyed confidence and communicated hudl2’s technical acumen, while being friendly and accessible for a broad audience.

“Our goal was to create an object that people will want to pick up.”

The new tablet runs on the Android operating system, like its predecessor. It features an 8.3” screen – up from the first model’s 7” – and Dolby sound.

Chauhan Studio says it arranged the tablet’s display, camera and speaker details to form a “simple, strong pattern” that would create an “easily recognizable visual identity”.

The new hudl2, which is priced at £129, is available in a wide range of colour options, including black, white, red, blue and orange.

User experience

Ustwo, which worked on the user experience design for the initial hudl launch, has also created experience designs for the new hudl2.

For the initial hudl, Ustwo created a suite of icons, wallpapers, sounds and “getting started” guides.

For the new hudl2, the consultancy has reworked the user experience at both app and operating system level and says it has aimed to develop a “fun, family-centred software experience”.

The resulting work includes a new icon suite, a redeveloped “My Tesco” gateway and a set of child safety tools.

Ustwo says it worked with Tesco to “constantly test” every aspect of the user experience design with customers.

Ustwo creative director David Mingay says: “It was clear to us all from the outset that the experience of the product would define the brand, so we conducted research using [people as the basis of our designs.

“We continued in that vein by subjecting our joint work to constant user testing. The end result is a joined-up customer experience that expresses the hudl brand’s values in terms of both hardware and software.”

Branding

The original hudl branding was developed by SomeOne, with an identity intended to represent “a solar system metaphor – hudl being at the centre of a digital orbit, and of family life”.

For hudl2, Tesco turned to The Chase to refresh the branding. This work included new brand guidelines, including tone of voice direction: a broader colour palette and a customised typeface.

The Chase also developed a suite of packaging – different for each hudl2 colour option – along with point-of-sale material and an image gallery shot by photographers Matt Stuart and Maria Moore.

Martin Lawless, who worked with The Chase on the project, says: “This project has been a great example of how complex challenges that layer in brand, product and experience – online and offline – need to be handled now.

“An open and collaborative spirit between teams of different skills has helped produce work we feel has broken new ground.”

Tesco head of connected products Aaron Lee says: “We wanted hudl2 to be a significant step on from hudl1 in every conceivable way and to do that we needed an edge.”

Lee adds: “Both our creative partners and our ways of working with those partners gave us that edge. To connect so regularly, openly and collaboratively with a group of forward-thinking teams has made all the difference.”