THE STORY

SOUND DESIGN GUIDELINE FOR DESIGNERS

The appropriate use of sounds has the potential to add a great deal to convey information in interactive commodities. However, sound is a largely unexplored medium as a design element in interaction design community.
This is a part 1 of my master thesis that aims to understand where sound is more effective than visual pieces. In the end, I will conclude with sound design guideline flow chart for designers who want to use sound for their design.
See final document

MY ROLE

This project was submitted to the School of Design, Carnegie Mellon University for the degree of Master of Design in Interaction Design. This was an individual project with Dan Boyaski as an advisor in School of Design faculty.

I was responsible for the user research, concept design, interaction design, visual design and sound design.

THE QUESTION

HOW DO WE TRANSLATE SOUNDS AS INFORMATION, AND HOW WE DESIGN BETTER WITH SOUND FOR MORE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Sound and vision are not only complementary to each other, but also convey different types of information. In general, auditory display has the potential to convey information that is difficult to display visually. Sound can provide information about events without visual attention, and about events that are obscured or difficult to visualize. In addition, visual complexity can be reduced by using sound that represent alternative means for information.

THE RESEARCH

DEEP IN THE LITERATURE

During the last 15 years, there have been many explorations to represent
information through sound. Those projects span diverse topics including
visual aid for visually impaired persons, auditory representation of sound
and artistic sonic interaction design. I explored those diverse topics
to acquire general knowledge regarding how sound is being used and
investigated what are common patterns of sound for informative purpose.

UNDERSTANDING

HOW DO WE PERCEIVE AND UNDERSTNAD SOUND?

By analyzing sound decoding process, the questions of “How the sound can enhance visual contents” become clearer. Here are the design questions involved in each phase.

When should sound be generated?
What kinds of interactions are more appropriate to use sound than visual element?

What kinds of information are appropriate to be represented as sound form?

What attributes of sound are recognizable to people? How people perceive different parameters of sound?

What type of information could be meaningful to the user? How we increase an accuracy of sound?

UNDERSTANDING

WHERE ARE SOUNDS?

Given the number of rigorous research studies, I focused on categorizing general functions of sound. This helps my research identify where sound interaction is more effective than visual content. As an outcome of this phase, functions of auditory displays can be categorized into the following four broad categories:

THE EXPLORATION

PARTICIPATORY WORKSHOP: TO FIND WHEN SOUND BECOMES MEANINGFUL

My literature review and existing project research heavily looked at the theoretical perspective, not with actual usage. Examination of research findings was necessary for identifying practical aspects. For this end, I conducted a participatory design workshop with six participants, which allowed not only generating new design concept and further insights but also validating research findings.

Goal of the design workshop

– When is the multi-modal interaction can be effective?
– How can I design the effective sound?
– Validation of my research findings

Participants

– 7 participants
– 3 designers
– 1 design researcher
– 2 musician
– 1 Sound designer

Tasks of design workshop

– Total workshop time: half day
– Affinity diagram activity(1h)
– Translate sound to abstract visual(1.5h)
– Design sound by using sound samples(1.5h)

““It was hard to gain information from the sound, because they are not set in a particular context. (….) I might get different Information from same sound that sets in different context.””

Participant 1Graphic Designer

““The whole point of having sound is enhancing the message. But I feel like if so many sound is happening at once, then, now it’s confusing again, cause you have to memorize what each sound indicate””

Participant 2Musician

““If I were going to work in this field, I would pick a particular situation or interface
and think very hard about how best to augment that particular system with sounds””

Participant 3Design researcher
THE SYNTHESIS AND FINDINGS

FRAMEWORK OF VISUAL AND AUDITORY CONSIDERATION

Designers can use the framework in concept generation phase to find opportunities of using sound to represent information and generate kinds of interaction and experience that sound design might offer. Once the designer decides sound can have a potential for their design, actual sound design and usability test should be iterated to investigate if intended communication is smooth and natural.

THE VISION

GIVE GUIDANCE THAT HELP DESIGNERS USE SOUND IN THEIR DESIGN

Designers seeking to use sounds should learn about the most basic sound interaction’s characteristics and potentials of the sound interaction by answering the following questions. What are the issues in the context when and where the sound will be generated? How can sounds improve the user’s current experience? Will the sound be easily adaptable, learnable? Answers to these questions should be found from an objective perspective to the user’s experience and interaction

SOUND DESIGN GUIDANCE

SIX PRINCIPLES

The nature of data to be presented and the task of the users are important factors for a system that employs sound as a medium of communication. When sound becomes designers’ consideration for more effective communication, designers need to consider those implications described below.

SOUND DESIGN GUIDANCE

SOUND DESIGN FLOW CHART FOR DESIGNERS

This sound design guidance focus on clarifying essential questions. So it starts with the context of sound design, what is the sound for. By simply answering each question, the designer can get a rough guidance for their project.