Audio for UX

Audio

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Recognition

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Recognition

• We don’t hear sound, in the sense of recognizing them, until shortly after we have perceived them.

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Recognition

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Recognition

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Recognition

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Recognition

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Recognition

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Anatomy of Sound

• Wave

• Human hearing range 20Hz - 20kHz

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Anatomy of Sound

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Anatomy of Sound

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Characteristic of Sound

• Pitch

• Quality / Timbre

• Loudness (Sound Pressure Level)

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Pitch

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Quality / Timbre

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Quality / Timbre

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Sound Pressure Level

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Sound Envelope

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Audio and User Experience

• Sound is an essential part of everyday living

• Sound can deliver entertainment: music

• Vital Information: traffic and news report

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Audio and User Experience

• Audio signals help us interact with our environment

• Some of these signals are designed:

• Alarm Clock Buzz

• Phone Ring

• Some are not

• Air Conditioner Hum

• Car Engine Sound

We notice it immediately when something doesn’t sound right

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Sound Like Success

“You can tell that someone start up a PC or Mac withoutlooking just by the distinctive sounds of their OS jingles”

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Audio’s Limited Role in UX

• Unwanted sound can be intrusive and annoying

• Invasive background music

• Click and beeps giving user feedback for no good reasons

• Zooming & swooshing sound accompanying animations

“Rather than enhancing a user experience, audiocan be a distraction and reduce our effectiveness”

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Audio Usage in UX

• Ambient Background Sound

• Task-and Event-Based Signals

• Warning and Notifications

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Ambient Background Sound

“Our day-to-day lives are filled with background soundsome of which we enjoy-say, ocean waves at the beach

and other sounds that we strongly dislike-likeconstruction noise”

“Will people need the equivalent of a white-noisegenerator in their computers to raise the backgroundsound level high enough to drown out distractions?”

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Task-and Event-Based Signals

“We often take for granted the offline audio cues that assistinput to digital devices. The click of the mouse and tap-tap of

the keyboard reinforce the fact that we’ve completed aparticular action”

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Warnings and Notifications

“Voice could be used to direct the user’s attention to importantevents or elements on the screen in a richer way than the

obnoxious beep that currently constitute mostcomputers’ audio vocabulary”

“Because audio is intrusive, it’s best to ask for a user’s permissionbefore using audio notifications and always provide a clear way

of disabling the audio”

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Principles of Sound Design

• Synchresis

• Acousmatic

• Extension (of sound space)

• Empathetice

• Anempathetic sound

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Synchresis

• This comes from the two tords “synchronism” and “synthesis”

• Mental fusion between a sound and a visual when these occur at exactly the same time

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Acousmatic

• The sound one hears without seeing their originating cause

• Invisible sound source

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Extension (of sound space)

• Build the image an environment

• Beyond the borders of visual field

• Or withing the visual field filed around the characters

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Empathetic

• Music or sound effects whose mood matches the mood of the action

• the ability to feel the feeling of others

• Like sadness, happiness and movement

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Anempathetic

• Usually diegetic music that seems to exhibit conspicuous indifference to what is going on in the film’s plot

• Creating a strong sense of tragic

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