AA1 - Semester 2 - Week 6

Interactive sound design

I chose my external hard drive, Maxtor One Touch III for analysing its sound design.
There are two different sounds (beeps) coming out of this. When it’s connected to a computer via a USB cable there could be 3 things happening.
1- Everything is fine! And there is no sound.
2- The drive is connected but there is not enough power; could be caused by the cable or the USB port of the computer. In this case, there would be a constant tone, which won’t finish unless the device is disconnected.
3- The drive is connected but it’s busy being recognised (or rather configured) by the computer; in this case there would be an on-off beep indicating that nothing should be touched.
The job of designing the sound for this particular product in my opinion is not bad.
a) It is more or less has a simple structure and is not hard for the user to realise what goes on; on the other hand, it just uses one tone; not so hard to note and recognise.
b) The constant sound the device makes when there is a problem is so annoying; the first thing that comes to users’ minds is to disconnect the drive and it is intentionally what is expected to be done.
c) The on-off beep gives a sense of not-being-sure and typically the user waits to see what happens next; it is also exactly what is needed to be done. While the user is confused, the device takes its time would sort everything out itself!Here is a link to a project of interactive sound design by students of the University of Melbourne. : http://www.sounddesign.unimelb.edu.au/web/biogs/P000565b.htm
..and some good stuff (obviously related to interactive sound design) from Kristianstad University, Sweden : http://www.fb1.uni-lueneburg.de/fb1/austausch/kristian.htm

References:
- Christian Haines 'Audio Arts 1.2' Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 03/09/2007
-Interactive Sound Environment - Australian Sound Design Project Work, The University of Melbourne (http://www.sounddesign.unimelb.edu.au/web/biogs/P000565b.htm)[Accessed 07/09/2007]
- Interactive Sound Design, Kristinstad University (http://lab.tec.hkr.se/moodle/) [Accessed 07/09/2007]