Award for user-friendly design of wireless multi-room music system

A few weeks ago the Sonos Multi-Room Music System, a wireless music system, which allows music-lovers to play all the music they want, was honoured with the international iF product design gold award 2009 because of its people-centred innovation, and the Sonos people contacted me to write about in on Putting People First.

Since we generally prefer to write about an approach to create products, I asked them to provide me some more background on the people-centred innovation, methodology, design process and the user interface.

And they did. At length! See the attached pdf, written by Mieko Kusano, senior director of product management (and in-house designer):

“Our design process is very inclusive of user feedback”. We’ve held many a user session, in-home visits and alpha programs – all designed to get real-world feedback that we can use to polish our design before we go to market. This care shows in the products.”

On the Sonos site itself, you can read short interviews with Kusano on the philosophy that drives product design, and with Rob Lambourne, director of user experience, who explains how his team designed the user interface. Or watch some of the stories of Sonos’ customers.

Thank you, Kaity.