Bose Sleep app for Noise-Masking Sleepbuds
We were on a mission to fix sleepless nights for people around the world by creating a product to help folks get to sleep — and stay asleep. 😴 The sleepbuds are linked here.
Challenge 🤔
Onboarding users within the Bose Sleep app to set them up for a great product experience. I'm focusing on the design work for proper fit because this experience was the most challenging to get right.
Outcome ⭐
A comprehensive & helpful onboarding experience for Sleepbuds, Bose's first health & wellness consumer product that masked noise from the outside world while playing soothing sounds through the Bose Sleep app.
My Role 💡
As part of a 2-person design team, I launched the Bose Sleep onboarding experience in collaboration with the Product Management + User Research team. We created a seamless experience between a physical product and a digital app for Bose's first Health & Wellness product.
Designing An Out-of-Box Experience 🎁
The out-of-box-experience is a crucial window of time to ensure that the customer knows how to use their product while maintaning a magical first impression of the product.
We were designing the app onboarding experience to highlight the value of proper earbud fit and how to do it correctly.
Eartip fitment ensured that the buds would be comfortable (even while tossing and turning at night) while properly blocking out noise. Our goal was to teach users to focus on picking the best eartip size for themselves.
Prototype Iteration ✏️
After running an initial usability study with prototypes, we learned that users were having a difficult time correctly sizing themselves and switching out eartip sizes.
I recommended:
- Using animations to guide users thgrough eartip fitment.
- Creating more screens with fewer instructions on them to focus on one thing at a time.
- Removing references to potentially confusing ear references.
A vast majority of users found the Size Guide screens above to be incredibly helpful, yet navigating there was difficult because it was not prioritized in the UI.
This lead me to recommend:
- Bringing the sizing instructions into the main flow, and adding a clear path to the Changing Eartips screens.
- Enlarging the images and creating animations that showcase how that the eartips are durable (and won't rip easily).
Then, we pieced together the final design. 🔧
I worked with our illustration and research team to asses static images, videos, and animations before deciding to use animations as the main method of showing users how to interact with their product.
InstructionsWorking closely with our UX documentation team, we chose instructions that streamlined a simple, clear, and friendly app onboarding experience.
ColorsWe recommended a "Dark Mode" option for the UI color scheme so that the interface was not too jarring while users used the app at night.
Final Onboarding Screens 📱
Bose's Noise-Masking Sleepbuds launched first to beta testers on Indiegogo in 2017, and then were live to the public in the summer of 2018.
My favorite parts about working on Sleepbuds 💖
People using sleepbuds described the set up as quick + easy, and said that the instructions and visuals were helpful!
“I did struggle a bit to figure out the right size of ear bud - each set comes with three different sizes so that you can find the best fit - but the visual aids and instructions on the app helped with that.”
Also, I bought my mom her own pair of Sleepbuds the moment we launched our product. An uninterrupted night of sleep has been a rarity for my mom, and giving her a product that would help her and many millions of people is the reason why I love working on hardware and software!
Please note that all information in this case study is my own (unless noted) and does not necessarily reflect the views of Bose.