Designing for non-visual interfaces — The navigation of sonic space. [Pt.1]
Product, Sound and Brand are old friends, of course. From television advertisements and radio jingles, to AOL’s ‘You’ve Got Mail’ — audio has always played an important part in communicating brand values. Whether it’s Apple Mac’s booming start-up sound, full of reassurance and the promise of a new (anodised) world, or those overtly chipper 4 notes accompanying Intel’s mnemonic swirl — it’s these moments that ingrain company logos and product promises in the minds of their audiences.
At some point in 2010–2011 we saw an evolution of brand experience via sound with the birth of Apple’s ‘Siri’ voice assistant. Helping users navigate a plethora of simple tasks, from dictating text messages to planning group events via a series of basic commands, these voice assistants seemed, at first glance, quite miraculous. However, as users became more familiar with this new branch of the mobile experience, their expectations of it grew, as did the complexity of their requests. In 2011 Siri promised us, conceptually, much more than it was capable of delivering — and so, temporarily at least, the dream died.
For the next few years we saw significant developments in the screen resolutions and processing power of our devices, but not much movement in the Conversational UI space. For the most part, slick graphics (hello SVGs!) and intelligent interaction design satisfied the majority — and so Digital Design as a practice remained frustratingly 2 dimensional.
Flash forward 6 years and we are, at long last, seeing market ready products that validate the IOT prophecy (Google Home, Amazon’s ‘Alexa’-powered Echo, Apple’s smart speaker ‘HomePod’) — the integration of a more evolved conversational interface. With it, comes a distinct shift away from screen-based experiences and move towards things like haptic feedback and, yes, sound!
The use of sound in the design of applications for smart devices has, so far, revolved around fact or status based communication. Common components include confirmation, success and error based sounds that guide users through a task or request — the absence of a visual interface demands that these sounds are understood unequivocally. In designing a CUI based experience, the challenge is to develop a set of sounds that aid the user’s experience whilst also evoking a deeper, more subliminal appreciation or understanding of the product manufacturer’s brand. What we also know, is that as the brand evolves, so too must this sonic language.
Though this process fascinates me, I must concede that it is the job of a Sonic Branding specialist or Sound Designer, though there certainly seems to be somewhat of a practice-specific overlap. What we’ve learned through trial and error with CUI based products and features, is that users quickly expect much more than is possible — what then does this mean for the development of those experiences and the navigation of more abstract (less screen-based) digital spaces? How might we apply our understandings of interaction and user experience design in the development of sonic based interaction and what challenges might this new dimension pose?
Read more: Part 2
