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News: Sound Decision – Inside the world of audio branding

October 23, 2015 by Adriane Kuzminski

A cursor hovers over the time on a Windows 95 screen, displaying the date as October 23, 1995. An exclamation pops up to say, "You keep checking the date. You must be confused. It's 1995. That feeling that you installed Windows 95 a long time ago is just confusion. Windows 95 will now run Solitaire to calm you." Article written by Adriane Kuzminski.
Did 20 years go by that quickly?
Image retrieved from the Windows 95 Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks Tumblr (parody site): http://windows95tips.com/page/3

User Interface sounds are a breed of their own. Some clearly represent their actions, such as the epochal ‘door opening’ to indicate a contact has logged on or the equally attention-grabbing announcement that “you’ve got mail,” which rationalized why you had to tie up the phone line another five minutes. Other sounds attempt to bind emotions to their actions; the wistful start up themes for Windows 95 and Mac OS assured you this is the future in their grounded, yet contemplative, chords. Whether literal or metaphorical, UI sounds are calls-to-action, sometimes to a Pavlovian degree, where this causes you to glance at your charging cable and this makes you think you’ve bumped your thumb drive. But when it comes to professional audio branding, how are these concepts used to evoke ideas such as ‘clean’ and ‘trustworthy’?

In her article for The Verge, Adi Robertson takes a look and listen at Skype’s audible UI and its current re-branding with Design Principal Steve ‘Buzz’ Pearce and Listen‘s Steve Milton. She walks us through the history of UI sounds, sharing stories about those who gave personality to otherwise silent actions, from William Gaver’s sound design for Apple in the 1980s to Jim McKee’s textured themes and Brian Eno’s 6 seconds of perfection in the mid-90s. Along the way, she uncovers some of the approaches these pioneers took in marrying audio to GUI and emotion to information, all with the intent to “make the world sound better.”

Filed Under: news Tagged With: Adi Robertson, brian eno, errors, Jim McKee, listen, mac, Mac os, NYC, pings, Skype, Steve Buzz Pearce, Steve Milton, The Verge, UI, User interface, William Gaver, windows, Windows 95

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