New Sonos App and Accessibility

Keith N

At Sonos, we take accessibility seriously and aim to build listening experiences that everyone can enjoy.

 

The redesigned Sonos app was built from the ground up to support both modern and future Sonos experiences, and as part of that, we’ll be implementing ongoing improvements and enhancements over time. On May 7, the app will have basic support for screen readers, allowing you to swipe through and read through all items on the screen. Following launch, ongoing improvements to the accessibility of the updated mobile app will remain a top priority. A software release available May 21 will improve screen readers so you can select items on screen in any order. Further improvement will be added to the experience regularly until we reach parity with the S2 app by late June. 

 

In the meantime, the Sonos Windows and Mac applications will continue to operate as normal until our new web app has met our accessibility standards.

 

Thank you for your patience as we continuously improve the accessibility of the Sonos app. 

Corry P 2 months ago

Hi All

This thread is related to Accessibility functionality of the new app. Any further off-topic comments will be removed. 

There are plenty of other threads relating to the new app that are not about Accessibility - please feel free to post to them instead.

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55 replies

G
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Hi, has anyone tried the latest update to the IOS App (released today 21 May) with voice-over? if so has accessibility improved? and if so how? 

I’ve stayed on the last version of the old S2 App and firmwear released in March and am not intending on upgrading until July when hopefully all accessibility problems and issues with missing features should have been addressed. i just wanted to check in and see what the state of play is regarding accessibility of the app is as of now. 

I’d be grateful for any thoughts and observations 

Thanks 

and best wishes.

T
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I gave it a basic try.

Browsing the app has actually improved a little - at least focus does no longer jump around.

VoiceOver reads everything, except for the toggles to turn alarms on or off - in a few words if you have an alarm on, you can’t turn it off or vice-versa or you can’t toggle the “random” options to make the alarm play random music.

Same for playlists I think but i haven’t tried it in deep.

I think the interface is very, very confusing in general because you have everything there, and for a VoiceOver user it’s very very difficult to choose a desired content if you have no reference points.

Headings, for example, I mean.

Then, I feel also that the translation in other languages -I’m italian- is made by AI or automated translators, well, for an app managing very expensive speakers it’s not the way to go

 

Elena Brescacin
T
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You can even find other bugs on 21st May release here:

https://www.applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/may21-sonos-app-bugs-voiceover

 

Elena Brescacin
K

For a legally blind person this app is not accessible at all. Even for a seeing person it is not accessible! My family (a person is blind) and I have been searching in the app to change the alarms for weeks now, and we ONLY were able to find it after a Google search („Sonos alarm settings location“). An app like this that provides the management of their OWN products should not be this complicated and difficult to understand. Till we figured out that that incredibly small gray button with the text „Manage“ even exists!!!!! And that it actually took us even about 20 more minutes after a Google search to locate it! That should just not be the case at all. Please revert the update or just AT LEAST make it similar to ur previous version and don‘t just throw in a major update without ANY guide at all as to where important things like Alarms are now located. 

T
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Sonos release of the 29th May 2024.

Switches:

I still must look at all settings windows, but…

when you manage alarm clocks:

  • it’s impossible to turn them on or off 
  • the name of alarm clock and its toggle control, are seen as a single control by VoiceOver so if you double-tap the alarm clock, it opens its settings page. 
  • when in settings page from the alarm clock, the repeat, when you have all the week days - VoiceOver does not say if one is active or not. 

Expected result: name of the alarm clock, for example “bedroom, 7:15”, then you flick right and find the switch on or off to activate or deactivate as it was in previous version.

When you select the days, they should be toggles and VoiceOver should say if they are on or off.

I have still to check what’s next, because I’m sure bugs are still there and some huge ones.

 

Elena Brescacin

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