Sonos Internship
Discover content you know you will love from friends
"It puts a person behind a suggestion which makes it more personable"— User
Context
Sonos is an aggregator
Sonos is a service provider
Design an aggregated content feature
Approach
My process
Research
Identified pain points and needs
We discover from word of mouth
It's in our nature to share what we like
Content discovery is time-consuming and tedious
Content discovery from other platforms feels repetitive
Opportunity
How might we…
Given Sonos design principles:
Solution
Content Discovery Through Sonos Prompts
My solution will bolster user engagement and add value to the Sonos app by solving a user need — it tackles the lack of functionality to discover new and unique content from the app with a more personable lens.
Similar to browsing through a friend's album/book collection…
Users can discover friends' authentic recommendations all in one place…
Sonos users can respond to prompts to share their own recommendations and organically connect with others based on common interests.
With weekly prompts
Sonos users can respond to prompts to share their own recommendations and organically connect with others based on common interests.
Row in My Sonos
Seamlessly discover music, playlists, radio, audiobooks and more from people you know and trust.
Deep dive into a friend's recommendation and their stories
Seamlessly discover music, playlists, radio, audiobooks and more from people you know and trust.
Service swapping paradigm
Users can seamlessly play from a shared service, add and discover playable services, and select when they have multiple services.
Brand partnerships
Monetization
Prompts are also an opportunity for non-audio brand partnerships. Brand partners can increase their brand exposure by creating a prompt to engage with Sonos users.
Prompts & profiles for artists & creators
Monetization
Not only can users develop connection to their favorite content, prompts can also become a tool for artists, creators, and influencers to form a personable connection with people their content has an impact on.
Design Exploration
What could be Sonos's competitive edge?
What does personable discovery look like?
Auto-generated profile
Auto-comparing
Content deep-dive
Interest-based community
Evolving into prompts
1. Prompt card
2. Sample stories
Validation
Usability test
- Main goal: test usability & viability
- 5 Sonos employees
- 45-minute sessions
- Moderated task analysis + survey on Zoom
- Tasks: onboarding & discovery of prompts
100% of users found prompts to be joyful
100% of users felt that prompts were easy to use
Users enjoyed the social component of discovery
Refined Design
Design solutions
Vision
Informed north star
Other Projects
Netflix
Only 5% of members have played a mobile game. How do we improve the discoverability of them?
Internship
NASA SUITS
Navigation and field research in space is tough. How can we create an AR tool to aid astronauts with mission critical tasks?
Augmented Reality
Johnson & Johnson
Surgical devices should be as easy to use as popular consumer products. With this core principle, how can we enable surgeons to perform high-risk surgery?
Design System