Optimal Alarm Sound Design

Optimal fright perish creation New physique branch for discernible, b arly agreeable vigorouss Author 193 Track 3 what the beep? ABSTRACT The goal of this research is improving frighten sound shape, focalization on the puzzle of noticeable versus lovely sounds. The characteristics of pesky sounds correspond in large extend to the characteristics of noticeable sounds. Therefore it is serious to design an alarm clock sound, which is noticeable, but not painful. A lot of studies atomic number 18 conducted along aspects which make sounds annoying and several guidelines are described for designing noticeable alarm sounds.However, no data is conveyed close the combining of these characteristics linked to sound design. In this study an animated design process for alarm sounds is adjusted regarding to sugariness and obviousness of sounds. Hereby rules to analyze and test pleasantness and noticeability of sounds are added to the process. As a top this paper suggests a new design process which flowerpot be used to design an alarm sound considering these aspects. Keywords overlap sound design alarm sound annoying sounds noticeable sounds design processes INTRODUCTIONMost of the m alarm sounds are not optimal designed, because in the majority of cases the mise en scene of the user is not interpreted into account. Edworthy (2006) found that in consequence alarms are often too sorryly designed resulting in annoying, not effective sounds. Schmidt & Baysinger (1986) pointed out that a pleasant sound to report a complication shadow be more effective during an emergency. However, the alarm sound should still be clearly noticeable, so that it stick outnot be missed. pestilential sounds The intelligence of disgust whitethorn be very personal and subjective, but research as shown that in that respect are some characteristics of sounds that limit this perceived annoyance. (Steele & Chon, 2007). The research of Steele & Chon (2007) found that loudn ess is the most important deciding(prenominal) of annoyance in respect to sound. They also revealed that the wider the bandwidth, the more annoying the sound is perceived. Higher frequencies and modulations increase the science of annoyance as well (Genuit, 2001). A modulation is a change from one tone to an different. in addition the type of sound, there are a many other factors that influence the perception of annoyance. One of these factors, revealed by Maris et al. 2007), is the ability to influence the sound. Another study posited that age is also an important aspect for determining the perception of annoyance. (Botteldooren & Verkeyn, 2002). Noticeable sounds Obviously, the noticeability of an alarm sound is better when the volume of the sound is higher(prenominal). Edworthy (2006) pointed out some other characteristics of clearly noticeable alarms sounds, like high and low frequencies, harmonics and discontinuous sounds. Hereby alarm sounds are respectively easier to loca lize, more resistant to masking by other sounds and less presumable to interfere with communication.Harmonics are sounds with frequencies that are a multiple of the fundamental frequency. Another component which makes a sound more clearly noticeable, is the sportswoman in more than only pitch (Edworthy & Meredith, 1997). Namely, if a sound alters in more than just tone, for exemplify frequency, the ability to distinguish it from other sounds increases. Besides that, surroundingsal sounds and auditory icons are easier to learn and retain (Leung, 1997 Ulfvengren, 2003). Similarities annoying and noticeable soundsThere is a lot of literature written about designing noticeable alarm sounds and about annoying sounds. However, there is barely literature which compares these dickens characteristics of sounds. Nevertheless, a lot of characteristics of annoying sounds are equal to the characteristics of noticeable sounds, see figure 1. Figure 1. Characteristics which make sounds annoyin g as well as noticeable. As you fucking see in this figure, loudness is an important characteristic of annoyance as well as noticeability of sound. The same is true for high and low frequencies which are linked to a wide bandwidth and a high frequency.High frequency is also linked with harmonics, because a harmonic is a sound whose frequency is higher than the keynote of that sound observed by the ear. moreover, modulations contribute to an annoying sound, while discontinuous sounds provide a noticeable sound. This is at odds(p), because if a sound has modulations it is not discontinuous as a result of the changes in tone. So most of the characteristics of annoying and noticeable sounds are similar, whereby it is hard to design an alarm sound that is noticeable, but not annoying. All the corresponding characteristics are focused on type of sound.However, there are other factors which can influence the perception of annoyance and the noticeability of sound. These factors are partic ularly related to the context. Research of Philip (2009) also showed the descent among the annoyance and noticeability of sound. She showed a significant correlation between the urgency rating and the annoyance rating of alarm sounds. The urgency rating can be linked to the noticeability of the alarm sound, which in essence points towards a relationship between the annoyance and noticeability of a sound. Yet, there are no papers with guidelines or systems to deal with this problem.Purpose The overall goal of this research is improving alarm sound design, foc victimisation on the balance between noticeable and pleasant sounds. The aim of this research is suggesting a design regularity/process which helps to get to a balance between the noticeability and annoyance of sounds. In this paper leave behind be focused on a wide range of alarm sounds. Every sound with a warning function is taken into account. Hereby the outcome is usable for a variety of alarm sound designs, see figure 2. The IC is a relevant example, because noticeability is very important in this place, but if an alarm is too annoying it is often turned off.Another example is an alarm clock. It is imported that the product helps you to elicit up in time, but if the sound is not pleasant you may have a bad start to the day. Figure 2. Examples of products with alarm sound. For this research a literature study is done about existing methods which can be used to design alarm sounds. With these inputs and information about the annoyance and noticeability of sounds a new method is defined. EXISTING METHODS Design processes are most of the time iterative and consisting of different stages (Roozenburg & Eekels, 1995).Often, a design process starts with a problem definition, followed by ideas to solve this problem. Then a concept is create to meet the determined requirements and satisfy the user. (Rouse, 1991). Design process alarm sounds Edworthy and Stanton (1995) came up with a user-centered method to design alarm sounds, see figure 3. In this method, especially the noticeability of the sound is taken into account. In the method nothing is stated about the annoyance of sounds, though. From this process some stages which are also usable to design a pleasant, noticeable alarm can be derived.Important stages regarding these aspects are establish the need for warning, withdraw rank test, tuition and confusion test, urgency mapping test, recognition and matching test and operation test. Figure 3. Edworthy and Stantons design process to design alarm sounds. The mentioned stages are particularly serviceable to design a noticeable sound. Therefore some stages that focus on the pleasantness of sound can be added. Besides that, the context of the users is not taken into account. However, this is very relevant to design an alarm sound, since most characteristics which are not conflicting are related to the context.Context Another method which can be used to design alarm sounds is etn ography. descriptive anthropology is a method to define the context by revealing the users environment and interactions between the product, user and their own physical environment (Leonard & Rayport, 1997). This is useful for alarm sound design, since it is important to take the environment of the user, including other sounds, into account. Pleasantness There are some known proficiencys for eliciting verbal attributes of product sounds, which can be used to identify the importance of pleasantness of a sound.One of these methods is the Repertory Grid Technique, succesfully applied by iceberg & Rumsey (1999) for eliciting descriptions of the sound of a product. Another procedure to evoke important attributes of sounds is the Quantitative descriptive Analysis (Stone et al. , 1974), whereby a descriptive language will be true by participants accompanied by a facilitator. piece of music applying these techniques no real sound examples are used, but products are presented to recall t he attributes of sound connected to that product. afterward in the design process eliciting can be used to rank the different sound designs by annoyance.This can be done by deriving verbal attributes through a survey. Gabrielsson (1979) used this method by conducting an extensive experiment, where the participants were asked to rate the sounds according to their suitability. Another method to test the pleasantness of a sound is a model made by Aures (1985). This model calculates the pleasantness considering sharpness, roughness, tonalness and loudness, with an accuracy of more than 90%. current METHOD Based on the design process of Edworthy & Stanton (1995) a new design process can be suggested for designing pleasant, but noticeable alarm sounds, see figure 4.Establish need for warning As the process of Edworthy & Stanton, the new design process will start with establishing the need for warning by identifying the raffish functions of the product. This will be done to clarify the importance of noticeability of the sound, which can be used to create an optimal balance between noticeability and annoyance. For instance, when noticeability is very essential, the annoyance of a sound may be less important. Identify context Then, the context will be identified by using ethnography. Hereby the physical environment of the user and the corresponding sounds are taken into account.Factors of the context can influence the annoyance and pleasantness of a sound. Therefore it is important to be aware of the context and use this during designing. inductance The last step of the analyis is elicitation of sounds, whereof users think they fit the product. By means of this method the importance of a pleasant sound can be revealed. There are two procedures which may be appropriate to do so. The Repertory Grid Technique can be used to elicit descriptions of the sound of a product. The more the word pleasant is called as description, the more important this characteristic will be .Besides that, the Quantitative Descriptive Analysis is useful to develop a descriptive language which describes the desired attributes of a product. The outcome of this technique can be compared with those of The Reportory Grid Technique. The difference is in the way the descriptions are elicit. The Reportory Grid Technique uses product sounds and the Quantitative Descriptive Analysis uses no real sounds, but only products. Figure 4. Suggested design process regarding pleasant, but noticeable alarm sounds Designing sounds The design of the sound can be done just the same as Edworthy and Stanton escribed in their process. First, existing alerting sounds and user suggestions will be considered. After that soundimagery studies can be used. Testing pleasantness/annoyance After designing different concept sounds, the sounds can be tested in terms of annoyance or pleasantness. To do so two methods are suggested. The get-go procedure consists of a questionairre or survey, whereby the par ticipants should rank the sounds by annoyance. The other technique is a model developed by Aures (1985) which calculates the sensory euphony(pleasantness) of a sound regarding loudness, sharpness, tonalness and roughness.According to these tests the sound can be modified considering pleasantness. Testing noticeability The noticeability of sounds can be tested by procedures Edworthy & Stanton (1995) described in their design process. Using these techniques the sounds can be tested concerning different aspects, like learning & confusion, urgency and recogniton & matching. The learning & confusion test is ideally performed in the real context, so it will become clear if the sound can be preoccupied with other sounds in the environment.The urgency mapping test shows if the mapping between the signal and situation is satisfactory in terms of urgency using existent guidelines. In the recognition & matching test participants are asked to assign the sounds to the appropriate warning funct ion. According to these tests the sound can be improved and optimized considering noticeability. DISCUSSION The adjustments of the suggested design process are really focused on the analysis and testing of pleasantness and noticeability. Consequently, the designing itself is not taken into account, but is indeed very important.Further research for this phase of the design process can be useful to improve the suggested design process. Besides that, the design process is not tested, whereby there is not been evaluated how useful the process might be. To validate the suggested process an experiment with a couple sound designers should be done. Furthermore two procedures who explore roughly the same are recommended for the elicitation phase, but only one technique is necessary in this phase. Therefore more research about these methods in regarding to pleasantness and noticeability is favored to choose the most appropriate technique.CONCLUSION Due to the fact that most characteristics o f noticeable sounds are conflicting with the characteristics of pleasant sounds, it is difficult to design a sound which is both noticeable and pleasant. However, if the designer will focus on this during the whole design process, it should be possible to find a good balance between these two aspects. Hereby it is essential to look at the context of the user and the need for warning and a pleasant sound. Furthermore the sound should be tested on these aspects, since the characteristics are subjective and therefore defined by the user.The suggested design process can be used for a wide range of alarm sounds, which requires a noticeable as well as a pleasant sound. Some examples of such alarms are alarm clocks, microwaves and alarms in intensive care units. REFERENCES 1. Aures, W. (1985). 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