Sonos’ mission is to fill every home with music and make listening a valued experience again. Their smart speakers create a high-fidelity audio experience that consumers can control in each room of their home.

Many people don’t realize a home setting is the best place to try Sonos, so the retail experience is designed to provide the right environment. For their first flagship retail store, Sonos partnered with us to design a touch screen experience as the command center in each of seven listening rooms—giving consumers full control of their audio-visual experience.

Whether trying out different home theater configurations or learning about Sonos products, the touch screen is designed for ease of use and exploration. Play hip-hop in the living room and classical in the kitchen, see how to set up Sonos in your home, or discover new artists and sounds—the touch screen puts you in command.

Located in Soho, NY, Sonos’ first flagship retail store is a 4,200 sqft two-story space at the intersection of digital, design, and music culture.

Inside, seven custom built listening rooms offer consumers the chance to play with Sonos products, see how they work together, and understand how they would sound at home. Users control the music, the speakers, the lighting and the TV through the touch screen, fine-tuning their perfect listening experience. They can experience the difference between a PLAY:1 speaker and a PLAY:5, or experiment with different combinations of speakers for even richer sound.

To craft the right experience, Sonos built a mock version of the store inside a warehouse. As the design evolved, real users visited to interact and offer feedback. Over half a year of 2-week sprints of user testing and design iteration, we refined the most effective ways to explain the technology and brand story through a simple and engaging experience.

We learned the importance of letting users compare products visually to understand the differences. We fine-tuned the experience with motion and visual cues to switch users’ attention between TV and tablet. We discovered that people don’t realize the benefits of streaming over Wifi, so the app educates on how Sonos speakers do this to provide the best sound quality, connectivity, and multi-room control. The process resulted in a natural flow where visitors can explore on their own first, and get help with a real person when they want it.

The concept can be flexed for multiple applications while providing a consistent branded experience. For example, we’ve adapted the experience to be a fixture at partner retailers around the globe. The modular interface design lets us translate not just the text, but the entire experience for retail displays across North America, Europe and China.