It's nice to hear someone else who is interested in this area -
having spent several years of my life doing a PhD thesis on sound, I
have a lot to say on the subject, so I'll keep it brief!
Personally, I don't believe sound design, as a discipline, gets the
recognition it deserves. From my experience, traditional sound
design, particularly within human-computer interaction, is less of a
"design" discipline and more of a technical one, rooted in
perception or task-driven concerns. This means that, at best,
adopting a "sound design" stance in HCI has resulted in
usability-enhancing/interface-centric projects (e.g. "does it take
the user longer to do a particular task using an earcon (abstract
sound) or an auditory icon ("real world" sound, e.g. trashcan
emptying), and why?") or, at worst, the treatment of sound as an
"add-on"; something that can be done by a friend-of-a-friend who
owns a copy of Audacity, the end result being an incongruent mess
where sound and vision don't match (I don't count HCI researchers
within the latter though!).
To me, while I have no objection to the plethora of research
investigating the use of sound within the interface, I believe
"sound designers" could (should?) offer more within interaction
design. To me, it's all about looking at where we are in terms of
technology development. 10 - 20 years ago, when there was more of a
focus on task-driven concerns, the usability model of sound design
made more sense, and I've certainly learned a lot about it. However,
as technology increasingly becomes "new media", where the emphasis
is less on the user completing tasks, this model becomes a little
more outdated. So, we may ask questions such as: can we improve the
"experience" of a particular technology (whether it be on our
desktops, on a mobile device, a particular environment) through
sound, without ignoring the other interactive aspects of the system?
What can we learn from other, more established, fields, such as
films, theatre, or computer games? The latter field is possibly one
of the few examples of interactive media in which sound design is an
artform in itself, and not just as a means of adding a few beeps to
menu items. Do we encourage computer game sound designers to get
involved in interaction design? How can we raise the importance of
"good" sound design? Where is sound design useful within
interaction design? Do we involve users (or other "non-sound
professionals") within the sound design process? If we do, what
methods can we use to get them to think/talk about sound, to evaluate
sound, and so on? How do we encourage a greater understanding of the
links between sound design and design as a whole? Should we
incorporate sound design into academic design courses?
So...I guess what I'm trying to say that (a) sound is
under-represented within interaction design, (b) there are more
questions than answers in terms of how it can be encouraged, and (c)
this makes it a very exciting field to work in. Join me in my
journey...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=37669
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