From Prototype to Product
Meet Mieko, Senior Director of Product Management at Sonos, and learn about the philosophy that drives product design.
What is the basic concept behind the Sonos Multi-Room Music System?
Mieko: Our basic concept was to create a lifestyle product that made it easy for people to play all the music they love, all over their house. Before Sonos, setting up a multi-room music system in your home was extremely expensive and complicated. In fact, the only way to do it was to knock down walls and undergo a massive rewiring project. So, when we began thinking about a solution to multi-room audio we insisted on making it wireless and simple. With the emergence of new groundbreaking wireless technologies, the timing was perfect. We built the system from the ground up, thinking not only about multi-room audio players, but also about multi-room audio control.
How is Sonos different from traditional audio equipment?
Mieko: When people think about stereos, they have a distinct picture in mind. It’s black. It goes in a media cabinet. It plays CDs. It has a receiver with speakers. For Sonos to deliver true multi-room music, we had to rethink and redesign all of that. With Sonos, your music sources can be anywhere, your playback can be anywhere and you can control all your rooms and all your music from anywhere. The parts in the system are no longer in one place. Instead, they’re distributed throughout your home and placed wherever you want music. It’s a new take on audio equipment that we hoped would make people stop and think: wow, this is definitely not my father’s stereo.
What was the basic design philosophy? Mieko: We had three basic design theorems. The first was “quiet confidence.” We wanted to design a high quality system that would blend into people’s lifestyles, so we made sure the design was not going to be intrusive. The second was “functional elegance.” We were really firm about this one. The features absolutely had to work as well as they looked—and visa versa. The third was “innovative simplicity.” The system has a lot of complex functionality and technology built-in, but we didn’t want that complexity to play into the user experience.
What about the design is particularly innovative?
Mieko: It’s not one thing, but lots of little things and a clear design direction that make this product truly innovative. For example, in designing the ZP120, we chose an aluminum enclosure that is great at dissipating heat, which means there’s no need for a noisy fan—so all you hear is the music. And, you wouldn’t know it by its size, but the ZP120 has a 55W per channel amplifier inside, thanks to several innovations spanning audio, electrical, mechanical, and software engineering. We also decided to build three antennas inside every ZonePlayer to accommodate optimal wireless performance while still keeping things compact. To make sure our products continued to look great over time, we applied materials that are normally only used outdoors, so UV exposure would never be an issue. And last but not least, we put labels on the back of the ZonePlayers so anyone could set it up in minutes.