Crafting intuitive user-centered experiences for new products, feature enhancements, and conceptual roadmap designs

Bose is a consumer electronics company with audio products, including headphones, soundbars, and speakers to help users better enjoy their audio and visual content.

During my tenure at Bose I typically worked on smaller, agile teams that worked on concepts with an anticipated timing of 3-5 years. Much of the work cannot be disclosed due to NDA restrictions. Please contact me at edolecki@gmail.com for more information.

Bose Design: Monochromatic

The current design language (as seen in the image above) relies heavily on a largely monochromatic palette of colors to convey a calculated and precise approach for the user, both for the website and for the Bose Music application. This is about to change in favor of a more dynamic and colorful approach.

It was time to think about how a planned redesign could benefit the Bose branding efforts moving forward.

Wireframes

Work began in earnest with initial wire-frame studies to ensure that the correct screens and user flow were properly considered before inspecting the design system for matching components to modify.

My Specific Tasks

Fidelity Activity

As the sole designer, I was responsible for designing the UI, UX, rendering layouts, and selecting photography. I worked with guidance from the Bose Design department and created assets in a design system that could later be used by other designers. I created frameworks and prototypes to share the vision, design principles, and content strategy. I also helped to conceptualize the ideas, gain alignment, and prepare for a potential full branding rollout in the future.

Introducing color

A general upbeat palette was formulated that could work it's way into background gradients and other elements such as photographic lighting gels and effects to lighten and enliven digital experiences. One proposal is the introduction of different palettes depending on user location, time of day, and the seasons. This has not been user tested yet however.

Fonts

The previous typographic treatment implemented Gotham as a corporate font. It was a fairly unassuming font which also involved significant licensing fees. Bose took the steps to have a new corporate face developed to better move the brand to attract a more dynamic demographic.

Initial Personas

Three personas were quickly established to form a baseline target for the project. Designs would initially be targeting their age and lifestyle demographic with layout, color useage, and purchase flows (for web).

Say hello to Alex, Emily, and John.

Mood Boards

A mood board is a visual tool used in experience design to convey the overall style, tone, and feeling of a project. It typically combines images, colors, textures, typography, and other design elements that reflect the desired atmosphere or user experience. Designers use mood boards to communicate their vision to stakeholders, align team members on the project's creative direction, and ensure a cohesive aesthetic throughout the design process. By capturing the essence of an idea visually, mood boards help to create a shared understanding of the emotional and sensory qualities the final experience should evoke.

Overview

Bose began entertaining rebranding efforts in order to more effectively target a younger audience in order to establish a growing and vibrant user base. These efforts saw online advertising start to test various new visual designs which started to include an expanded color palette. I took the initiative to create a new section of system design in order to support the rebranding efforts on mobile devices in the form of coporate site design and also Bose Music Application design.

My Role

As the sole designer, I was responsible for designing the Ui, UX, rendering layouts, and selecting photography. I worked with guidance from the Bose Design department and created assets in a design system that could later be used by other designers. I created frameworks and prototypes to share the vision, design principles, and content strategy. I also helped to conceptualize the ideas, gain alignment, and prepare for a potential full branding rollout in the future.

Timeline

Over five weeks I shared my progress in four informal reviews with Bose Design to gather feedback and ensure that the design was progressing appropriately given higher-level business direction. I spent the days in between critiques making edits to the design which took a few days per weekly sprint to complete.

Bose.com and the Bose Music Application are two of the most experienced digital platforms experienced by both veteran and potential Bose customers alike. In order to attract a younger target audience Bose has begun investigating a rebranding that includes vibrant colors, more dynamic product photography, and more daring typography in revised layouts.

We would likely be investing in the new directions being tested in the marketplace, so this project served as establishing design work to allow the company to create a new section of system design in order to more quickly roll out the rebranding while also supporting designers with an expanded Design System Library.

Using the Bose Music design system already partially established by Bose Design, I initially began design iterations within Sketch/Zeplin to find the optimal components and assets to ensure consistency and easy reuse. I quickly moved over to Figma where the Design team had begun developing their design system and planned on using that software moving forward. for more advanced prototyping.

After rounds of critiques and interaction with Bose Design, they had a working and pre-qualified design system at their disposal to help in their future rebranding initiatives that would include both the corporate website and also the Bose Music application - notably the application first. While Bose Design was occupied with launch efforts of new products, anticipated work was generated and at the ready.

Executing Design-to-Development Handoff

Leveraging attention to detail the project gave me valuable experience handing off deliverables in a design system for development in a customer-facing environment. In addition to generating component assets I also provided system documentation to guide both Bose Design as well as any developers who had to interface with the components in code.