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Mike H
Retired Sonos Staff
May 14, 2024
Interview

Sonos App Redesign AMA

  • May 14, 2024
  • 770 replies
  • 65998 views
Sonos App Redesign AMA

Today is the day of the AMA!

The new app design has been out for a week, and most of you have had a chance to get used to the new UI.

Some of you might have questions when you have had a week to get to know the new Sonos App interface. Because of that, we want to give you all a chance to ask some of the people who were integral in its creation and design, the questions that have come to mind while you have used the app.

As we mentioned in the event.

Our panelists will be:

  • Diane Roberts, Senior Director of Software Development
  • Kate Wojogbe, Senior Director of User Experience
  • Tucker Severson, Director of Product Management

It will be hosted on the 14th of May from 11:00 until 14:00 GMT -07.

But instead of me telling you what they do and what their role with the app update has been, here are their own introductions:

 

Diane

Diane Roberts is the Senior Director of Software Engineering and Product Management at Sonos responsible for the Sonos Apps. Her group of cross-disciplinary teams build Configuration, Control, and Content experiences on a foundation of Core mobile application technologies. She received dual Bachelors’ of Science in Computer Science and Music from WPI. Diane holds 6 granted patents as a co-inventor.

 

Kate

As Senior Director of User Experience, Kate leads the UX team responsible for Sonos’ home audio hardware, software, and app user experiences. This includes user interfaces on speakers and soundbars, setup for hardware and services, first and third party content experiences, and a variety of methods of control of the Sonos system. Kate graduated from the University of California Los Angeles with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Design.

 

Tucker

Tucker Severson is the Director of Product Management and leads the PM team responsible for the Sonos Apps. Tucker received his BA from Bates College and his MBA from the University of Vermont.

 

We will do our best to answer as many of your questions as possible within the 3-hour window, but we can’t promise to answer every question, especially those you know we can’t discuss.

But if we see a question repeated or a reply getting a lot of likes, don’t worry. We will prioritize those to ensure that many people get the answers they seek.

 

Remember, we can’t talk about things on the roadmap - but if you have questions or feedback about the app redesign, want to know more about our panelists, like their background or favorite band, then the sky is the (cough cough.. NDA) limit!

Thank you, everyone, for participating. We covered as many of the most asked questions as possible. We know tracking the responses wasn't as easy as we had hoped. But we wanted to let the community air frustrations and have their questions answered.

I got a lot of DMs during the AMA, and I will be sure to answer them when I can. Thanks for reaching out!

Keith and I will work on recapping all the questions and feedback we have responded to, and we will update the post here when that is complete. If we didn't get to your question, don't worry. Keith and I are grabbing all the feedback from this thread, even the things we didn't respond to, and ensuring the right people will see the message. This was the first time we created a live AMA in the community, and we learned a lot for future AMAs.

We appreciate all the feedback and questions you gave through this AMA. It helps us understand your most significant feedback and your reasoning. We hear you, and we will ensure the right teams get your feedback. They are listening.

We look forward to rolling out the updates with features (new and old) as soon as they are ready. Keith shared an overview of the timeline for expecting these features to return to the app. Today was the first update, reintroducing alarms and improving the iOS voiceover.

We look forward to seeing your reactions to our future app developments. We hope you all appreciate the work our developers are putting into making the app as fast and easy to use as possible for the general user.
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770 replies

Lyricist II
May 14, 2024

People of sonos, you are an absolute disgrace!!!

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

Wherever this AMA is taking place, I bet the only participants are:

  • Diane Roberts, Senior Director of Software Development
  • Kate Wojogbe, Senior Director of User Experience
  • Tucker Severson, Director of Product Management

I wonder why they don’t wonder that they are in the wrong place.

Lyricist II
May 14, 2024

Ok, I am leaving now. My question

 

Why did you think it was appropriate to call an AMA and then not show or answer questions? I feel for your hard-working support teams, they are probably trying to do their best and facing hostile questions.

 

Asking people to give up their time and then not show isn’t going to help the situation. You are imo turning a bad situation into a crisis. Please can you be clear about when and how you will respond to some of the very legitimate questions here. I can give you a pass on any of the insults masquerading as questions, but there are some very insightful and appropriate questions which should be worhy of a repsonse. Or let us know that you have to postpone the AMA due to emergency meetings or otherwise.  Give your moderators something to convey as this silence is just breeding hostility. We can’t all be happy but we can be better informed - even if the answer is - things haven’t gone to plan and we are rapidly having execuitive meetings on some critical issues which is foring us to delay our public events.

Prominent Collaborator I
May 14, 2024

What was the thought process behind releasing the app update in an obviously unfinished state, instead of waiting for critical issues to be resolved?

Thank you @veryblocky @YorkSteve @umiami91. Since you all had similar questions, I’d like to answer them together.

An app is never finished! 

It’s probably a good idea to give you some background. This is a new app - we started from an empty project file. As the project progressed, we stopped investing our time in the old app code. Over time we “cross-faded” our engineering attention into the new app. We need to make the new app be the app going forward so we stop splitting our attention.

We decided that now is the moment to bring you the new app. This is the beginning, and we will be continually iterating going forward. As I said - an app is never finished.

OMG. Is this REALLY how it’s going to be? 
Please don’t do this. 
 

Enthusiast I
May 14, 2024

Patrick Spence retweeted this last month:


So, why is Sonos management not showing up?

Lyricist II
May 14, 2024

 

 

Enthusiast II
May 14, 2024

How about we DM the members of the board of directors? Would that help with this..situation?

Really, I don’t know anymore. 

Good suggestion, contact board members, CEO, Chief Product Officer and send them a link to this AMA session.  Used LinkedIn messages if you have an account.

Mod Edit: Removed links to personal linkedin profiles. We don’t condone barraging peoples private accounts.

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

What was the thought process behind releasing the app update in an obviously unfinished state, instead of waiting for critical issues to be resolved?

Thank you @veryblocky @YorkSteve @umiami91. Since you all had similar questions, I’d like to answer them together.

An app is never finished! 

It’s probably a good idea to give you some background. This is a new app - we started from an empty project file. As the project progressed, we stopped investing our time in the old app code. Over time we “cross-faded” our engineering attention into the new app. We need to make the new app be the app going forward so we stop splitting our attention.

We decided that now is the moment to bring you the new app. This is the beginning, and we will be continually iterating going forward. As I said - an app is never finished.

What a terrible answer. Witty puns are less than helpful. Building an app from the ground up is great, but don’t dump it on users without a choice and without feature parity and call it an upgrade. 

Enthusiast II
May 14, 2024

 Nice to hang out with you all.. but I have had my fill of fun with these clowns.

Lyricist III
May 14, 2024

I see someone said they posted the link, but I still can’t find it anywhere on this page. Could someone please just post the direct URL in case it is wrapped in inaccessible content?