Minutes: AudioPlaf Sounds Meeting

Date: December 11, 1998

Present: Anastasia Cheetham, Lake Porter, Karen McCall, Joseph Scheuhammer
Regrets: Jutta Treviranus

We reviewed the principles outlined in the last minutes. Lake suggested that the last principle be revised:

• The audio needs a consistent esthetic. Whether the sounds are humorous or not depends on the motif of the display. If the interface is meant to be humorous, then all of the audio should reflect that. There should not be a mixture of humorous and non-humourous -- a "serious" motif demands that all the audio be consistently "serious".

Lake also brought up the issue of the use of stereo. Aside from the resource demands, he posed two questions:

1. Is the "average" users' music IQ such that they would get anything from the use of stereo?
2. Can stereo be used to communicate user interface information? What kinds of information?

We revisited the tree identification sound that Jutta suggested. Lake said it sounded like the game "pachenko" (sp?). He will look into pachenko sounds.

We discussed the slider identification sound, and decided it needed to be replaced. The current incarnation sounds too much like the radio buttons. Someone suggested using a glissando (?) like sound that starts low, increases in pitch ("slides up"), and then decreases in pitch ("slides down").

We revisited the "container" sounds -- menu bar, tool bar, and desktop. Karen suggested that tabbed pane be added to this group. Joseph suggested that metaphorical audio may not be possible with these containers. Aside from the sound of a tool box opening (for tool bar), it is difficult to come up with analogies for the other containers. What does a menu bar sound like, for example? Karen suggested the use of reverb and echo to indicate an enclosing space. This received general approval, but there remains the question of how to distinguish menu bar from tool bar from desktop using reverb/echo alone The reverberating sound effects must be distinct somehow. Lake and Karen will experiment with reverb and echo, and bring examples to the next meeting.

We reviewed the alerts and dialogue audio:

• Message dialogue: ok.
• Warning dialogue: Air horn instead of claxon. The volume on the air horn needs to be decreased.
• Confirmation dialogue: ok.
• Input dialogue: The audio identifier is the same as text (scribbling sound). It was felt that this might be too confusing and that a separate "input is desired" sound effect is needed. Some suggestions were:
  • a variant of the "sparkle" audio used with confirmation dialogues.
  • a telephone ringing to give a sense that the user needs to answer or provide input before continuing. Someone pointed out, however, that this would make it more like a Warning dialogue; that the ringing is an alerting technique.
• Component dialogue: ok.

Joseph Scheuhammer.