Bose

With input from the Bose team, I helped develop two concepts that would not only simulate noise cancellation and represent the 700s' features, but also allow us to understand how users would best align with the experience.

Scenarios / Presents a list of environments (e.g. open office, busy cafe), within a single-state interface that includes feature options for mode and audio content.

Benefits / Presents a single environment, and guides users through the experience sequentially, surfacing key features as benefits.

Participants preferred the sequential flow

Most cited a desire to experience feature benefits discretely as digestible items; further expressing that having more than one scenario was not necessary.

Within Bose headquarters, utilizing a physical display as a mock retail store environment, our intent was to learn about the discovery of the physical display, user interest in and comprehension of the demo’s feature technology, interface usability, and resultant product knowledge.

I designed and built a fully interactive prototype that simulated noise cancellation features

Central to this testing, the prototype represented the end-to-end sequential flow and included several various pieces of audio from Bose. I also hypothesized that adding an instructions step, emphasizing each item, would adequately inform participants about how to get started.

The communications strategy was not effective

The majority of participants noticed and used the QR code to engage the actual demo, however, most were inclined to use the Bose headphones available with the display. This was due to scanning the headings of the demo’s instructions, and missing the descriptive copy. The animations focused attention item-by-item, but overall the “onboarding” was not clear.

Simulating the noise canceling experience involved using multiple pieces of audio to establish the depicted scenario, and highlight its features. Due to the timing of the environmental audio events on a continuous loop, including a cafe server, noise cancellation states were unclear depending on participant action. With a sample podcast playing, others did not fully understand the “Transparency Mode” feature, if unable to hear the server.

Provide direct feedback and audio choices

Two key changes could improve the experience: 1. Directly trigger audio events by user interaction for immediate feedback. 2. Provide sample content options, including music, as the podcast’s dialog was a bit distracting for some.

I hypothesized that a benefit could be reinforced for users that lacked understanding by providing contextual feature and/or technology explanations. This implementation would keep the interface clean and the user on task, yet still be available if needed.

Unique features were more likely to be explored

It was clear that the desire for more information was directly correlated to a more novel or unknown feature. With noise cancellation being a ubiquitous concept, significantly more participants tapped “Learn about this feature” to better understand the Transparency Mode feature.

I was interested in evaluating different UI paradigms to gauge comprehension of visual feedback. Multiple à la carte prototypes were presented, including Bose’s level-based system, to learn what would most simply correlate input to output.

Numbers and levels did not add increased value

Participants were less interested in setting distinct values, and most preferred the simple slider with waveform and nearly all identified that its visualization represented “noise”.

While the findings exposed several pain points, a key takeaway is that interactive experiences afford users the opportunity to understand features otherwise difficult to convey, and can be valuable tools that provide relatable contexts to understand product benefits. After using the experience and prototype, participants noted an improvement in their knowledge of the 700's noise canceling features, with an increased likelihood to purchase.

We recommended that Bose pursue creating interactive demonstrations, while following a few directives: