Bose is a household name in headphones, pro audio, home theater, and automobile sound. Research and technology is in the Bose DNA. In 2018, they acquired Sync Project, and I joined in the mission to bring Bose into the world of health and wellness, beginning with the launch of their acclaimed Sleepbuds.
My Role: Product Owner, Content Experience for Health And Wellness. I was a cross-functional lead and product stakeholder in the new Health division, leading and contributing to customer and design research, audio intervention design, scalable production capability, engineering research, mobile app UX, and more.
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Launch and Learn
Serving original content to promote positive wellness outcomes was a new proposition for a device company.
Mission
Enable cross-functional design workstreams to support the development of the Health & Wellness category. Explore the impact of content-based services on hardware and software engineering and design, customer and user research, and marketing.
Challenges
A global audience
A hardware-first org, new to SaaS
Domain credibility
New team, immature cross-functional processes
A foggy new category vision
Defining Success
Get to market fast
Establish metrics, analytics, and feedback loops
Engage with and learn from customers
Define a scalable messaging framework
Enable scalable research, design, and development work streams
Category Liftoff
The Sleepbuds launch introduced a new Bose Wellness category.
New tools and processes were needed to drive research, insights, design, and development. The Bose customer lifecycle looked very different through the lens of Sleep health and wellness outcomes.
Lifecycle and ecosystem framework.
Meanwhile, I was also deep in the weeds of designing and testing the expanding Sleep audio content suite. Sleepbuds shipped with only 10 sounds. App and device firmware updates enabled deployment of 50+ audio selections across three categories, which meant more happy customers.
Carefully-crafted Now Playing screens from the Bose Sleep app.
More Jobs to be Done
Customers wanted more and better content types for relaxation and rest.
Sleepbuds were not like other headphones. The tiny form factor came with challenging performance limitations. My background in music technology came in handy.
Challenge
Sounds were stored directly on the buds in flash memory. The challenge was to enhance the audio experience without reinventing the hardware.
No streaming audio
Must work within storage capacity of 3 minutes of audio
App & firmware only – no hardware changes
Has to sound and feel good to customers!
Solution
I devised a content approach that required the device firmware to function like a midi sequencer, seamlessly arranging and playing several small audio samples over longer periods of time. This could be deployed as a software-only update, worked within our constraints, and opened the door wide for long form music, voice guidance, and more.
Mindfulness, Music, and More
I partnered with SME’s and creators to produce and direct all of the Bose Sleep audio content.
I often created customer-facing content myself, as well as examples to accompany the creative briefs and spec sheets we shared with partners. A few samples below.
Sleep was the focus, but we were approaching an overall health and wellness platform.
This would include a detailed onboarding and a robust coaching and guided activity experience.
I explored different content and engagement models that provided scalable concept, language, and system frameworks.
Wellness Program Content Model
Product Evolution
Sleepbuds and the Sleep app set the stage for category growth and explorations in recurring revenue models.
Mission + Vision
Develop a content product roadmap for a market differentiated, tiered subscription content service.
Design end-to-end scalable authoring, production, and publishing system for highly personalized ML/AI-based generative audio.
Challenges
Design for deployment across multiple devices
App and content Internationalization
New technology development
Stakeholder buy-in
Defining Success
A differentiated offering
Evidence-based intervention design
Research-based feature design and prioritization
Clearly defined product requirements
A better-with-time model
SleepMixes
The stage was set for Bose Sleep to grow into a multi-device, tiered subscription service.
While the bulk of my work was centered on content programming, content feature development, and audio intervention R&D, I was a hands-on contributor the the overall Bose Sleep experience vision.
Screen designs and prototypes were one way for me to help orient a cross-functional group to core concepts of personalized onboarding, coaching, and guided discovery.
Sample screens from an app onboarding prototype
Sample screens from a customization workflow prototype
Experience Architecture
Personalization and guidance are essential for effective Sleep outcomes.
To fuel human-centered thinking that considered all of the the different user types and lifecycle phases, I introduced a variety of experience architecture artifacts, processes, and workflows to the cross-functional team.
Core app touchpoints are shown as distinct nodes
A sample flow illustrating an idealized path through New User touchpoints
App Flow Diagram
Home screen app flow for a beta release
Systems & Process
A viable and differentiated subscription audio product would rely on new concepts for therapeutic content production, testing, and deployment across multiple audiences and devices.
As always, it was important to generate sharable, living artifacts to help communicate these nascent ideas and technologies to researchers, engineers, stakeholders, and other cross-functional leads.
A few examples below.
Generative and Adaptive Audio
Visualization: Parameters and behaviors for generative and adaptive audio performance
Production Process & Flow
Phases, activities, and dependencies for end-to-end production and publishing for voice-guided meditative content.
Publishing System Flow
Authoring, processing, and publishing systems flow.
There’s More to the Story
I’m only hitting the high notes of an exhaustive 4-year dive into therapeutic audio product development. As a Product Manager with a deep background in UX, I used every tool in my formidable toolbox to align cross-functionally on a mission, a vision, and a direction.
There was a lot of writing. A LOT of research. A lot of partnerships with experts and creators. Some seriously innovative software and hardware development. These are stories I love to tell so, if I’ve piqued your curiosity, hit that contact form and let’s talk!