KEY AREA:
SOUND AND INTERFACE DESIGN FOR ENHANCED USABILITY AND RICHER EXPERIENCES
Sound is a natural part of everyday life. Talking and listening is perhaps the most important way of interacting with other people. Sound reaches our ears from all directions and informs us about events, materials, distances, directions and much more. Still, however, interactive applications are strangely silent, with a few exceptions.
A
n increased information load in many user contexts requires designers to focus on multimodal solutions rather than purely visual solutions. By using a multimodal approach, we will be able to build interfaces that lead to more efficient human-machine interactions as well as more attractive working environments. Using sounds creates opportunities for eyes-free interaction, which in many situations is safer and less demanding as it does not require the users’ full attention. Today, sound as a medium for interaction is very underused in most user contexts. Unfortunately, existing auditory solutions are typically neither good nor inspiring. In order to change the existing view on the use of sound in interfaces, it is important to develop good examples, build solutions that users accept, and stop contributing to bad sound environments.
• Sound is an undervalued source of information in today’s vehicles and will become increasingly important in the future vehicle and transportation business.
At the Interactive Institute, we commonly make use of participatory design in our projects. This, in combination with our competencies in cognition research, sound design, acoustics, sound analysis, sound programming, interface design and concept development, makes a good platform. We are experienced in project and innovation management, and most of our projects result in working prototypes. Using our mixed competencies and experiences, we can go from problem and idea - through a research-based design process - to prototype and evaluation. We see a great potential for the use of sound interaction in a range of domains, including the vehicle industry, the process industry, and other areas involving intense information flow and demanding decision-making. Other interesting areas are the service industry, the media industry, the creative industry and product design.
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CASE
IMPROVING WORK ENVIRONMENTS THROUGH ADVANCED SOUND SYSTEMS
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