Sonic Interaction Design: Sound, Information and Experience

Abstract

Sonic Interaction Design (SID) is an emerging field
that is positioned at the intersection of auditory display,
ubiquitous computing, interaction design, and
interactive arts. SID can be used to describe practice
and inquiry into any of various roles that sound may
play in the interaction loop between users and artifacts,
services, or environments, in applications that range
from the critical functionality of an alarm, to the artistic
significance of a musical creation. This field is devoted
to the privileged role the auditory channel can assume
in exploiting the convergence of computing,
communication, and interactive technologies. An overemphasis
on visual displays has constrained the
development of interactive systems that are capable of
making more appropriate use of the auditory modality.
Today the ubiquity of computing and communication
resources allows us to think about sounds in a proactive
way. This workshop puts a spotlight on such
issues in the context of the emerging domain of SID.

Full text

Sonic Interaction Design:
Sound, Information and Experience
Abstract
Sonic Interaction Design (SID) is an emerging field
that is positioned at the intersection of auditory display,
ubiquitous computing, interaction design, and
interactive arts. SID can be used to describe practice
and inquiry into any of various roles that sound may
play in the interaction loop between users and artifacts,
services, or environments, in applications that range
from the critical functionality of an alarm, to the artistic
significance of a musical creation. This field is devoted
to the privileged role the auditory channel can assume
in exploiting the convergence of computing,
communication, and interactive technologies. An over-
emphasis on visual displays has constrained the
development of interactive systems that are capable of
making more appropriate use of the auditory modality.
Today the ubiquity of computing and communication
resources allows us to think about sounds in a pro-
active way. This workshop puts a spotlight on such
issues in the context of the emerging domain of SID.
Keywords
Sound Design, Auditory Display, Multimodal Interaction,
Product Design, Interactive Arts and Music, Sound
Perception and Cognition, Sound Modelling
ACM Classification Keywords
H.5.5. Sound and Music Computing
H.5.2. User Interfaces
Copyright is held by the authors.
CHI 2008, April 5 –10, 2008, Florence, Italy
ACM 978-1-60558-012-8/08/04.
Davide Rocchesso
IUAV University of Venice
Venezia, Italy
roc@iuav.it
Stefania Serafin
Aalborg University Copenhagen
Ballerup, Denmark
sts@imi.aau.dk
Frauke Behrendt
University of Sussex
Brighton, UK
F.Behrendt@sussex.ac.uk
Nicola Bernardini
Conservatorio “C. Pollini”
Padova, Italy
nicb@sme-ccppd.org
Roberto Bresin
KTH
Stockholm, Sweden
roberto@kth.se
Gerhard Eckel
IEM - Graz, Austria
eckel@iem.at
Karmen Franinovic
ZHDK - Zürich, Switzerland
k.franinovic@gmail.com
Thomas Hermann
University of Bielefeld
Bielefeld, Germany
thermann@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de
Sandra Pauletto
University of York, UK
sp148@york.ac.uk
Patrick Susini
IRCAM
Paris, France
susini@ircam.fr
Yon Visell
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
y
on
@
cim.mc
g
ill.ca
CHI 2008 Proceedings · Workshops April 5-10, 2008 · Florence, Italy
3969

Introduction
Thinking back to Edison's phonograph or, more recently,
to the mp3 craze, one may well say that music has
been a driving factor for technology [1]. But, can the
same be said for sound in general? To date, non-
musical sounds have been accepted as by-products of
technologies rather than being exploited for their
intrinsic value. As a result, an acoustically polluted
world is what most people have been experiencing
since the industrial revolution. Times are mature to
think about sound as one of the main design
dimensions of the environments in which we live and
work. That means overcoming the sound-as-noise
cultural barrier and promoting a sound-as-information
attitude. This tendency is already visible in the market
where new products (e.g., the Nintendo Wii) exploit the
tight coupling between sound and gesture in
interaction. The same trends have manifested in the
performing arts for many years, and have been recently
exposed as main issues in the New Interfaces for
Musical Expression (www.nime.org) series of
conferences, which are also a spin-off of a CHI
workshop. Designing the sonic appearance of
interactive systems is thus becoming a competitive
issue as well as a lively playground, which nevertheless
depends on knowledge that has grown in several
interrelated fields of research and practice. The
relevant areas of research have grown in significance,
both as a result of the design needs associated to
improving the sonic jungles we are increasingly
confronted with, and as economies of scale and
miniaturization have contributed to a widening array of
interactive artifacts and systems that are embedded
with ever more sophisticated computing, sensing and
actuating capabilities.
Goals of the Workshop
The SID workshop intends to foster discussions around
and promote the integration of scattered research
efforts in sound modeling, design, art, perception and
cognition into a coherent movement capable of
improving the interactive acoustic appearance of future
environments. It aims to achieve this by providing a
forum to present and discuss relevant current work
within and spanning these areas, organized around
several key themes.
Perceptual, Cognitive, and Emotional Study
of Sonic Interactions
This strand of the workshop showcases current
research surrounding the ways humans perceive,
understand, and interact through sound – knowledge
that is basic for the design of new systems that utilize it
as a primary modality. From low-level psychoacoustic
features to more complex attributes motivated by
auditory modeling, work in this area has positively
impacted numerous application areas. This has
included the identification of sound features salient to
the function of an artifact or system, as in the design of
alerting or signaling sounds [2], to perceptual features
of importance for the design of musical sounds or
control spaces, or those that are matched to more
holistic subjective quality descriptors for a product’s
identity, interaction and task context. Knowledge about
certain classes of functional sounds is of particular
interest for our everyday life. Perception and
classification of everyday sounds is also an emerging
theme which is featured in one of the contributions to
the workshop. Among other desirable outcomes of
research in this area, one may identify the development
of new sound assessment and predictive tools that may
be useful for sound designers, and the creation of
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psychologically founded frameworks that are useful for
the evaluation of the quality of a particular sound
design [2].
Product Sound Design
Sound design already plays a significant role in many
areas of product design, especially those which create
products with high functional densities, strong design
identities, or which address demanding markets such as
car design. Prominent industries that have benefited
from it include the automobile and cosmetics industries,
but lower profile applications have arisen in diverse
other areas, from kitchen appliances to toys and office
equipment. This strand of the workshop presents the
state-of the art in product design and discusses future
opportunities. The interactive use of sound should be
seen as distinct from applications that serve primarily
to signal or alert a user to an event, process, or state.
The workshop showcases ways in which sound can take
on a more prominent role [2]: Sound can create or
reveal new functionalities in a product, when these
functionalities may not be apparent through other
modalities, such as the physical form or other visible
indicators. Sound design is also crucial in mobile
devices, as shown in one of the contributions to the
workshop. Sound can also shape the sonic appearance
of an artifact, where appearance is thought of as
primarily referring to the qualities of the sound that is
produced through interaction. Sound can also be used
to provide feedback to aid users' performance with or
control over an interface, tool, device, or physical
activity. [4]
Interactive Art and Music
A major strand of the workshop deals with recent work
in the interactive and performing arts that exploits the
role of enactive engagement with sound–augmented
interactive objects. The work of such artists is
increasingly being recognized as a driving factor for
technology and sometimes for science as well. New
fields such as that of “aesthetic computing” [5] are
emerging from the joint efforts and mutual interests of
scientists and artists. Artists and designers have been
engaged for some time in questioning the ways that
sound is used in everyday life and in creatively
exploring future possibilities for interactive products
and systems, including those with embedded sound [6]
or in a mobile context [7]. This workshop strand
critically explores the present use of sound as integral
to such artworks, and reveals related future
opportunities and trends for interactive sound artefacts
through presentations from artist-researchers in the
sonic and performing arts. Some associated goals of
this area of contact are to inspire SID research in
complementary disciplines, to reveal interactive product
opportunities, and expose social and ethical issues.
Auditory Display and Sonification
Auditory display research to date has gravitated around
a number of topics such as the sonification of datasets
(interactive or otherwise), auditory feedback in
computing displays, auditory icons, earcons, signaling,
and mobile communication and computing applications.
Some of this work has been motivated by an increase in
awareness of the need for multimodal human computer
interfaces, as the contexts in which computing takes
place today include many in which an additional visual
display may not be effective, or may not be an option.
Sonification is beginning to impact many fields such as
information engineering, data mining, biomedicine, and
rehabilitation. By contrast with visualization,
sonification inherently develops in time, is critically
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dependent on interaction, and exploits the fastest of
human senses. Research in interactive sonification has
as a key objective that of empowering the designers of
such data sonifications [8]. The role of interactivity is
crucial in applications exploiting the auditory channel in
the exploration of complex information spaces.
Research is required to devise and test new interaction
methods and new mapping strategies for sonic
exploration in order to improve the effectiveness of
information foraging, browsing, and surveying with
sound.
Sonic Interaction Design
These key themes provide a solid framework for the
workshop's aim of advancing the discussion
surrounding the varied roles of sound in interactive
objects, systems and environments. The themes are
well represented in the accepted contributions in the
form of theoretical and aesthetical aspects of SID, novel
tangible musical instruments, algorithms for synthesis
of everyday sounds and sonification. Transversal to the
four themes, other areas of discussion emerge from the
submitted contributions, such as the need for a new
pedagogy of product sound design, or the role of sound
in enhancing presence in virtual environments. Sonic
Interaction Design is emerging as a discipline where all
these areas contribute valuable elements for closing the
design loop in sound-based interaction.
Acknowledgements
This workshop is sponsored by the European COST
Action IC0601 on Sonic Interaction Design [9].
References
[1] The S2S² Consortium. A Roadmap for Sound
and Music Computing, 2007,
www.soundandmusiccomputing.org/roadmap
[2] C. Suied, L. Pruvost, P. Susini, N. Misdariis, S.
Langlois, S. McAdams, "Speeded detection of sound
signals based on temporal differences", J. Ac. Soc. Am.
119(5):3333, 2006.
[3] P. Susini, N. Misdariis, G. Lemaitre, D.
Rocchesso, P. Polotti, K. Franinovic, Y. Visell, K.
Obermayer, "Closing the Loop of Sound Evaluation and
Design,” Proc. of the 2nd ISCA/DEGA Workshop on
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[4] D.Rocchesso, R. Bresin, M. Fernstrom,
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[5] P. A. Fishwick, editor. Aesthetic Computing. MIT
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[7] L. Gaye, L. Holmquist, F. Behrendt, A. Tanaka.
“Mobile Music Technology. Report on an Emerging
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[8] T. Hermann and A. Hunt. An introduction to
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[9] Informational website of the COST IC0601
Action on Sonic Interaction Design: http://www.cost-
sid.org/
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