Sonos CEO

Help us make Sonos easier to learn and use?

85 replies
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Hi everyone! Some of you may have seen my post on Reddit yesterday, but I wanted to invite feedback from this group directly on the same topic. Here’s what I posted over there:

For the last couple of months our engineers and designers have been working to improve usability of the app and I wanted to start a conversation here about what we’re up to, and invite your thoughts, long before any changes start showing up – even in our beta channel.
As you know, all too well, over the past year we’ve spent a lot of time digging out from the obvious performance and reliability issues in the “new” app. We’ve made progress but of course that work continues. Recently though we’ve also been asking a different question: even when the app works, does using it make intuitive sense?
To help validate our belief that we had real work to do here, we’ve been in customers’ homes watching them use Sonos. We’ve sat with people while they try to queue up music to a room down the hall. We’ve watched them search for a favorite artist. We’ve read the forums and threads here closely. We’ve run structured usability sessions and informal ones.
Surprising no one, we keep hearing that the core navigation patterns in the app are simply unfamiliar in ways that aren’t helpful. Swipe up gestures. Content cards on top of content cards. Key controls that reveal themselves only after someone tells you where they are. These are design choices that don’t show up in the other music apps people use every day and that mismatch alone creates friction. Even when the app is technically working.
So we’ve been working on a more conventional approach to navigation. Restoring tabbed navigation between key screens. Making search and browse much more straightforward and visible. Eliminating the need to discover hidden gestures. In short, leaning into patterns people already understand rather than asking them to learn ours.
In usability testing, the revised approach is performing really well. People get to their desired end state much faster and with much less confusion. They report feeling more confident about where they are and how to get where they want to go.
Even so, we are not going to flip a switch and surprise everyone with these changes. This will start as an opt in experience within our beta community. When that process yields an exciting result, it will roll out gradually to a bigger audience. Throughout it all, the details will almost surely evolve based on what we learn from the people who choose to try it. I expect this to be a months-long process of refinement rather than a single release moment.
Before any of that starts, I’d really value hearing from the community here.
When you think about navigating the app today, what feels most off to you? Are there things you like?
Where do you feel friction? And where is ease particularly important?
What do you wish behaved more like the other favorite apps you use?
We’re committed to getting this right patiently and methodically, until it feels like something you don’t have to think about.
Thanks, as always, for the candid feedback.

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MoPac

Headliner III

I’m fine with the way the Home Screen is now and the fact that you can organize it the way you prefer is very cool. It might help to add the “Local Library” to the “Your Services” list, but what would be nice is if you were able to edit the “Your Services” list the same way you can organize the Home Screen. I know you can select one Preferred Service, but I have more than one that I use often. If the “Local Library” became part of the Your Services” list that is one I would move to make it visible on the Home Screen.

kdowling

I think a great place to start with your app redesign, is to have a good long look at the S1 android controller. It might not be the best, but I think it’s a great place to start.

M

Marc_50

Collaborator II

Not a core navigation issue. But you should avoid to present people with pop up information they did not ask for when calling up the app. Or at least give them the option to opt out of that kind of information in the app. You probably guessed by now that I mean the ads for (for example) new Sonos products.

For me the Sonos app is only a means to control my music system. Don’t use it as a marketing tool. So please stop displaying ads. Or at least create a separate “news” section in the app that does not disturb the main function of the app.

M

MVPotato

Contributor I

One usability friction point for me is how Sonos handles stereo audio in home theater setups.

With an Arc + surrounds, stereo HDMI sources (like YouTube or Spotify from a console or TV app) only play from the soundbar, leaving the rear speakers silent. For everyday content this makes a multi-speaker system behave like a single soundbar, which is quite confusing from a user perspective.

The soundbar alone simply doesn’t cut it for music, and it feels frustrating to have expensive speakers like Era 300s sitting in the room but not being used at all.

Interestingly, Sonos already distributes stereo across all speakers when playing music through the Sonos app (Music Playback = “Full”), so the behavior feels inconsistent depending on the source.

I opened a thread about this here with more context:

An optional “All Channel Stereo” or stereo mirror mode for HDMI audio would make a big difference for everyday listening.

MoPac

Headliner III

Would like the search function for Music Library modified to make it easier to use. As a test I searched for Grateful Dead just to see how it worked ( Don’t use Search very often ). The screen that showed was Albums with the word Artist on top of the screen. My initial assumption was I was looking at all the Grateful Dead albums. Was confused that there was only one album. After more careful inspection I noticed that Grateful Dead was part of the album name. To see all the Grateful Dead albums in my library I had to open Artist shown at the top of the page then touch Grateful Dead. Then all the Grateful Dead albums showed. A bit confusing at first.

Would be better if all the categories showed on the first page when something is searched for. Show Artist, Album, Tracks etc. on the first page. Seems to me Artist should be on top with all the artist’s albums showing underneath. Then maybe Albums with, in this example, all the albums with Grateful Dead as all or part of the album name. I’m not sure how others search, but I think I would mostly be searching for an artist.

C

craigski

Local Superstar

Many pages in the App should have a scroll bar, or some other method to indicate that there is more on the page available via swiping/scrolling, if the screen has a limited size, eg iPhone.

A good example of this is the Settings » Alarms page, when you click the Alarm, you are presented with a page to ‘Edit Alarm’ and ‘Settings’, there is a volume slider at bottom, and a ‘save’ button underneath.

It is not obvious there are more settings available to edit if you swipe up, you see ‘Options’

If you select ‘Room’, you are presented with Rooms, if you have more than 10 Rooms, the ‘Options’ to ‘Include Grouped Rooms’ is hidden, its not obvious there are more options.

I’m sure there are other examples of this. New users tend to know what a scroll bar is, from other Apps they are familiar with, it makes it obvious there is more on the page.

E

Editor

Enthusiast II

My design requests would be:

the app should open with the Sonos components in the system listed with small icons at the top of the screen ( like those used for services) with a horizontal scrolling list if needed for larger systems. This is so I can easily select the Sonos device or room I want to control with one click. (Currently it is at least two actions)

Horizontal swipe(s) and a tap would also be at least two actions?

For phone users you would get 4 or 5 components across the screen and thus for many users systems there would be no need to scroll, just one click. And if you do have more units then if you could choose the sequence yourself you could have your most frequent choices first.

the iPad version could squeeze in 8 or 10 units without scrolling.

my main point is that the very first thing I want to do when controlling Sonos is to pick the unit or units I want to control so why have this displayed in such an unnatural / hidden way?

MoPac

Headliner III

It’s not that difficult to get to a list of all your devices, but the Room listings definitely could be smaller allowing more to show on the screen.

MoPac

Headliner III

It would be easier if there was a way to get to the Home screen from the queue screen without having to swipe down twice and then touching “SONOS” on the top of the screen if you weren’t already on the Home Screen.

If “SONOS” was added to the queue screen or above the queue screen you could touch it and it would take you to the Home screen without needing to swipe down the queue & now playing screens. To put it differently don’t hide “SONOS” when on the now playing or queue screens.

if you want to go from the queue screen to the now playing screen just swipe down the queue screen like it’s done now.

Smilja

It’s not that difficult to get to a list of all your devices, but the Room listings definitely could be smaller allowing more to show on the screen.

What’s so difficult about scrolling? There are visually impaired people out there, like me.

»And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind.« (›Windmills Of Your Mind‹ [1967]. Music by Michel Legrand ; English lyrics written by Alan & Marilyn Bergman)

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