BleepBleeps
iOS App & Connected HardwareBleepBleeps is a hardware startup founded in 2013 by Tom Evans, one of the UK’s leading creatives. I have been advising BleepBleeps since 2014 and joined them in January 2016 as Head of Customer Experience.
BleepBleeps are creating a range of cute, connected gadgets to make life easier for families. Each gadget has a face, a name and a character, and they each connect to your smartphone to help with a different aspect of parenting and family life.
In June 2016, we successfully launched our latest product on Kickstarter: Suzy Snooze is an innovative sleep companion for the whole family, helping babies, children and adults get a good night's rest.
My Role
As Head of CX, I was responsible for every aspect of the customer experience from online purchase, to unboxing, to using the product on a daily basis. For the customer, interaction with the physical product and use of it though a digital interface aren’t independent experiences. So CX design at BleepBleeps covers software, industrial design and firmware.
Rotate Suzy's hat to adjust the brightness of her light. Push down her hat to start her sleep sequence
Challenges
- Joining a startup means taking on roles that would normally fall to a specialist. BleepBleeps saw me moonlighting as a visual designer, product manager, copywriter, and marketeer.
- Suzy Snooze was developed with industrial design agency, Map, and technology design studio, Hive, who buildt the Suzy Snooze app. Working as a distributed team brings challenges. I invested a lot of time choosing tools such as Slack, Trello, InVision and Zeplin to help the team work together better.
Take a look at the BleepBleeps website ︎
Value Proposition Design
We develop products using a value proposition design process. VP design focuses on jobs, pains and gains: jobs a customer needs doing, pain they encounter getting these things done and the ultimate benefit gained.
The aim is to make a successful product by creating features that deliver value to the customer, either through more gains or reduced pain.
It’s crucial to validate the value proposition through both qualitative and quantitive research. I took advantage of our relationship with MumsNet, who provide access to their user base of parents.
Framer Studio Prototype
I used Framer Studio to prototype how we might represent Suzy Snooze’s animated LED sequence in the app. Framer’s code based approach to prototyping is fast, flexible and can achieve effects that aren’t possible in other tools.
Drag Suzy's hat down to start and stop her Sleep Cycle
Agile Process
The Suzy Snooze beta app was designed and developed in four sprints, over eight weeks.
Team
Tom Evans – CEO
Giles Perry – Head of Customer Experience
Niall Mccormack – Head of Software
Neil Merry – Project Director
Results
- Project of the day on Kickstarter
- Successfully raised $72,117
- Awarded Core77’s Best Consumer Product
- Icon Magazine’s front cover plus write ups in Fast Company, Creative Review and T3 amongst others.
- iOS app designed and developed in eight weeks