Exploring Earcons
Icon > “Eye”-con > Earcon. It’s an auditory icon. And a pun -__-
We are entering the final week of our project and are eager to add a couple of chimes, which we learned are known as earcons, to the motions and visual ui styles we’ve put together. This is a brief exploration in order to help us decide which to use.
Earcons can also serve important purposes: “Hospitals rely heavily on “auditory displays” for communicating critical information to healthcare workers who are constantly moving around and may be looking in any direction. “Studies show that healthcare workers respond much faster to auditory than to visual alarms,” according to User Experience Magazine.
- “Earcons are structured sounds, defined as a brief, nonverbal, distinctive audio sound/message to represent a specific event or convey other information and feedback to the user.”
- “Earcons differ from Auditory Icons in that earcons are generally synthesized tones or sound patterns, and have no direct relationship to the event. A learning process is involved for the indirect sound to eventually have a specific meaning.”
Sound Collections
Discord
The discord sounds feel very cohesive, they use almost identical tones in different formations.
Skype Earcon Collection
This collection seems varied, with some shorter, some longer, and on the more arresting side (the “knock” and call failed especially go beyond typical chimes)
Amazon Echo Dot Sounds
A combination of shorter beeps and more echoing chimes
Siri Sounds
The three sounds are identical, just at different pitches
Lastly, an example to show how even an avant garde sound style can remain cohesive:
Other scenario-specific sounds
Startup
Google Home Startup Chime
Apple Homepod startup/pairing
Mac startup
Notification sounds
Airpods low battery
Facebook incoming message
Error sounds
Windows error
Mac error
State changes
iPhone Lock
Airpods connected/disconnected
iPhone plugging into charge
Confirmations
iPhone email sent & received
iMessage sent & received
In a car context:
Turn signal blinker
Warning ding (seatbelt off, door is open, etc)
Remote lock or unlock
Based on these examples, I can imagine placing earcons on a few sets of axes:
- Short/Long
- Jarring/Soothing
- Increase in Pitch/Decrease in Pitch
- Repetitive/Unique
I tried to map a few sound characteristics onto a spider chart, but want to keep considering this further as we explore possible earcons for Aero.
What earcons does Aero need (part 1)?
- Welcome/pickup sound: A longer, soothing and unique (as opposed to repetitive) tone.
- Notification sounds: when Aero proactively makes an announcement. Could there be different types? One for logistical information, one for sightseeing, one for issues or alerts (quicker and more urgent)
- State change: going into private mode
- Destination/arrival sound: Also longer and unique rather than repetitive.
After speaking with our team further, we revised this list to be:
- Welcome/pickup sound
- Notification — positive/neutral (this includes state changes like picking up a new passenger)
- Notification — error/alert
- Confirmation — Aero acknowledges and confirms a change the passenger has requested
- Destination/arrival
We downloaded the appsounds.pro UI kit for consistency among the earcons and decided the Glass sound fit Aero’s personality well. I organized our explorations into two charts to present them to our class.
