Retired Sonos Staff

Interview

Sonos App Redesign AMA

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
May 14, 2024
770 replies
65990 views

The New Sonos App - Community AMA Recap post is now live!

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.

This topic has been closed for further comments. You can use the search bar to find a similar topic, or create a new one by clicking Create Topic at the top of the page.

Show previous replies

T

The_Gru

Lyricist III

Hi @DianeRobertsApps can you confirm the reasoning behind the decision to “upgrade” S2 app rather than create a new S3 app with the new design and put S2 into maintenance mode as you did with S1 app?

Hi @KateW the UX of the new app is very laggy and unresponsive, frequently displaying error messages, please explain why it was released like this and what you are doing to resolve it.

Hi @DianeRobertsApps are you able to explain why Sonos decided to make the app cloud-based, what are the advantages apart from extra latency making the app seem slow?

Hi @Absolute40 ,

Regarding the idea of a separate app, the problem with this approach is that the functionality between these apps would diverge over time, leaving a large group of users with an out of date and potentially not fully supported experience.

@DianeRobertsApps Highlighting and Bolding your statement as absolute nonsense! This is the exact situation you created by releasing this app in the state in which it was released.

The functionality diverged instantly.

One had functions. New one does not…

Sonos has left a large group of users with a “not fully support experience”

S

Sladest

Avid Contributor I

Another ridiculous argument. It is not a change! It is a DOWNGRADE WITHOUT NOTICE BEFORE DOWNLOAD!!!

@Sam_5 Hi Sam - I've personally been excited to bring the experience to our users, but also understand that anytime you are making a change to an interface that someone uses, you're going to be met with a breadth of reactions, and understandably some negative ones, simply due to the nature of change. We knew that some customers would be understandably upset by the delay in certain features, but are eager to continue to roll out updates to ensure these features are in place, and to address the feedback we are getting from our users. I'm thankful to have an app that is easier for the team to work with and publish updates to with far greater frequency than we've had in the past.

S

simoncoles

Lyricist I

I am very concerned with the lack of security. Specially since 90% of Sonos products have microphones built-in. All these speakers are now exposed to the web https://play.sonos.com. At minimum add 2FA before someone gets any funny ideas.

So, if the Sonos web app, and the devices behind it aren’t secure, we’re looking at a massive vulnerability.

Wondering if Sonos informed their insurers before they exposed all their customers (without warning or consent) to whatever their cybersecurity measurers are.

Given we know what Sonos’s software engineering practices are… (rushes to unplug everything)

U

Undergrid

Lyricist III

@KateW

When the app was getting ready to be released, what were your personal feelings regarding the new app?

Did you anticipate that it would be so poorly received?

@Sam_5 Hi Sam - I've personally been excited to bring the experience to our users, but also understand that anytime you are making a change to an interface that someone uses, you're going to be met with a breadth of reactions, and understandably some negative ones, simply due to the nature of change. We knew that some customers would be understandably upset by the delay in certain features, but are eager to continue to roll out updates to ensure these features are in place, and to address the feedback we are getting from our users. I'm thankful to have an app that is easier for the team to work with and publish updates to with far greater frequency than we've had in the past.

In this case the negative feeling isn’t because of change, it’s because YOU BROKE STUFF OR OMMITTED FEATURES.

If everything had been present and 100% working, you may have gotten grumbles, but you wouldn’t have pissed off a good portion of your user base.

The sooner you understand and accept the difference, the sooner we’ll actually be able to get somewhere.

T

Tuningspork

Lyricist II

@KateW

When the app was getting ready to be released, what were your personal feelings regarding the new app?

Did you anticipate that it would be so poorly received?

@Sam_5 Hi Sam - I've personally been excited to bring the experience to our users, but also understand that anytime you are making a change to an interface that someone uses, you're going to be met with a breadth of reactions, and understandably some negative ones, simply due to the nature of change. We knew that some customers would be understandably upset by the delay in certain features, but are eager to continue to roll out updates to ensure these features are in place, and to address the feedback we are getting from our users. I'm thankful to have an app that is easier for the team to work with and publish updates to with far greater frequency than we've had in the past.

On top of “the nature of change,” many people are upset by specific problems, the huge majority of which you’ve failed to address here, in a forum with no purpose but for you to address them.

This response is insulting, as most of Sonos’ posts in this thread have been. We get that you can’t talk like normal people here, but this could not have gone worse for you.

W

What_is_QA_test

Lyricist I

I have the same questions as many others in this chat. It seems this rushed release was driven by C-Suite executives prepping for a new product launch. This is a prime example of why you shouldn't release unfinished software. It's better to push back a launch and miss a deadline than to release an app that hasn't been properly QA tested. Instead of taking the right approach, you've damaged your relationship with existing customers and shown future potential customers the backlash. This logic makes no sense.

Don’t get mad at the developers, get mad at yourselves, get mad at your leadership. I spent too much money for this lack of quality.

L

Last_Chance

Lyricist III

Will Sonos Voice control still be locally processed (as advertised) or will the recorded voices also be transmitted into the internet or the Sonos cloud?

G

Graham Kelly

Enthusiast I

What has been the general mood of the Sonos team/staff since the new app was released? Was the team surprised at the negative reception or was it expected?

[…] Any time we change an experience or delay a feature, we know that some people will have negative sentiments. We also saw in our usability testing that people appreciated the new user interface, adaptability, and faster time to music.

We have been reading your posts and seeing your feedback.

Once the release went live, the mood could be described as “energized.” The activity on the team is high as people share what they’ve built for the next releases. We are excited that we can bring these continuous regular updates. It’s easier and faster now for us to share what we’ve built with you. That started with today’s release and will continue on May 21st with releases to follow.

This seems tone deaf.

You’re right, there’s always going to be some degree of negative reception when making changes — “who moved my cheese?”

The question is whether the improvements are a bigger step forward than the limitations are a step back. Are there going to be more positive responses, or negative ones?

Personally, I’m in the Steve Jobs mindset of, paraphrasing, “design isn’t how a thing looks, it’s how a thing works.” If a product works well, then people can overlook the interface shortcomings; if the product doesn’t work well, then no amount of interface glitziness can make up for that.

It has to have been obvious to people there that the new version broke more than it fixed. This is a radical rewrite of an established product, and it has a laundry list of shortcomings compared to its predecessor, as many posts here, on Reddit, and elsewhere have documented.

My question: does anyone there have veto authority on a bad release? How bad to the bugs need to have been to compel someone sufficiently senior to step back and say that this product, as it currently existed, was not good enough to release to the public with the Sonos name?

Some in this forum have suggested that launching a new S3 app could’ve made sense. This seems like a good idea, because it could have offered users a preview of where Sonos is going, while retaining the ability to stick with the more or less stable S2 app until the user decides to switch over.

Of course, it’s too late to do that now, alas, but surely in hindsight it has to be clear that this would’ve been a better way forward.

At this point, we’re all stuck. Your users are left with a semi-functional system, and your software team is stuck with a huge backlog of bugfixes to rush out the door.

Good luck. You need it.

You ask if anybody has the veto. The responses from Sonos in this AMA demonstrates that everybody just keeps smiling at each other and spend the days congratulating themselves for a job well done. Nobody has the gumption to say “sorry, but isn’t this less functional than before?”

I feel that the team who wrote this app and its management are so far removed from the real world that we are all now lost.

I did hope that this AMA would straighten things out. It has done the opposite. It has demonstrated that Team Sonos is just so far up their own posteriors that they cannot see that the world outside is ditching their Sonos equipment.

S

Sladest

Avid Contributor I

I think if they would have come out and apologized right away and then laid out some semblance of a plan to make it right - they could have changed this trajectory quickly. Sonos is on a complete wrong track!!!!! No consideration for customers and clients only for their shareholders probably….very sad

K

Kirkythesparky

Could you please keep the option for the boost going as many people don't receive a strong wi fi signal and extenders and boosters just interfere with the signal and having paided out for a booster cant afford to buy speakers to act as a receiver and don't want the look off speakers everywhere.

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Diane

Kate

Tucker

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