Audio Feature Specification Template

List the codecs your target platforms support natively: MP3 and AAC cover 99% of web and mobile use cases. Include WAV or FLAC if you need lossless input for transcoding. Ask your engineering team to confirm server-side transcoding capabilities before finalizing the spec. For more on technical decision-making as a PM, see the [Technical PM Handbook](/technical-pm-guide).

At minimum, provide text transcripts for all audio content. If the audio is part of a visual experience (like a tutorial), closed captions are also needed. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.1) Level AA requires transcripts for pre-recorded audio. Level AAA requires sign language interpretation for pre-recorded multimedia. Start with AA and plan for AAA in future iterations.

Specify the user experience you expect: "playback should start within 2 seconds on a 4G connection" or "interruptions should not occur on connections above 1 Mbps." Let engineering determine the buffering strategy to achieve those targets. Specifying exact buffer sizes is too prescriptive and prevents engineering from optimizing.

Define quality tiers (low, standard, high) and the user experience for each. Specify whether quality switching is automatic (adaptive bitrate) or user-controlled. For most consumer apps, automatic switching with a manual override in settings is the expected pattern. Use the [feature spec template](/templates/feature-spec-template) as a companion doc if you need to spec the settings UI separately.

Focus on engagement metrics: play rate (% of users who press play), completion rate (% who finish), average listen duration, and skip patterns. These tell you whether content is engaging. Add technical metrics (buffer events, error rates, quality tier distribution) for reliability monitoring. Track these in your [KPI dashboard](/templates/kpi-dashboard-template) alongside other product metrics.