Headphone Advanced Development
Advanced development effort to define the design direction for Bose’s next generation flagship banded headphone.
On a three-person design team, I helped shape the vision for our next hero headphone, starting with two primary goals:
Take back the title of best active noise cancelling headphone in any form factor, a space Bose created and has the right to own.
Convey an undeniable level of quality through premium design, materials, and craftsmanship.
Competitive analysis, resonance studies, customer review analysis, and previous design work was used to establish the foundation for concept generation.
Architectural concepts were developed in collaboration with mechanical engineering to evaluate a range of potential directions, using comparative analysis against existing products to inform decisions. This process helped define a clear visual target while reinforcing and refining the core design principles guiding the final outcome.
Early concept exploration looking at ear cup shapes, headband and yoke architectures and articulation methods.
User interface exploration
Carrying the vision of an undeniably premium headphone through every touchpoint, a refined hardware UX should minimize inputs to only the essentials, delivered through intuitive, thoughtfully crafted controls.
The output is a concept grounded in a proven mechanical architecture that ensures optimal fit and comfort, while the elevated design showcases a simplified form language, premium materials, and minimal part breaks. The learnings derived from this design exploration became the tenets that guided the development of the next flagship Bose headphone – QC Ultra.