As creators of digital experiences, our focus has been on creating experiences that influence our senses of sight and touch. But we’ve forgotten about the important role sound plays in our lives.
Let’s face it, sound in the digital space has been given a bad rap. If we think back to the 90s when the web first started booming (and the rise of Flash), we saw sound used in ways that we wish we hadn't. This history ultimately led us to be more considerate about how we included sound in the experiences we created.
It’s no surprise that a large amount of design work these days is visual, given the fact that the majority of products and devices we interact with have screens. Yet, as the Internet of Things surrounds us with devices that enable us to hear our words and anticipate our needs, screens are becoming increasingly less important as we continue to shift our focus towards interfaces with Invisible UI (User Interface).
Invisible UI is a term coined last year by Fjord, which refers to a paradigm where our movements, voice, glances, and even thoughts can all cause systems to respond to us through our environment.
This reality involves shifting away from touchscreens and interacting with the devices around us in more natural ways, through haptics, computer vision, voice control and artificial intelligence. Take the success of Amazon’s Echo Dot for instance – a hands-free, voice-controlled device that plays music, controls smart home devices, provides information and reads the news.
So why exactly is it so hard to incorporate sound into the experiences we create? Why has sound on the web traditionally been an afterthought – a nice to have, as opposed to a way to enhance the experience?
The interpretation of data should not be reserved for visual. Sound is a vital part of the human experience and brands need to consider the potential that exists with providing sound with their experiences.
Working closely with Streaker, Fjord has created The Sound of the Web, a prototype that converts online data into sound. The experiment aims to make it easier to ingest enormous amounts of data by turning it into sound and using that sound to interpret points of interest. Beyond this, the experiment looked to creatively explore exactly what the web sounds like and whether it could be possible to make it sound rhythmic – almost music like.
The Sound of the Web, a sound experiment that looked to bring to life data from the web and start a discussion about the importance sound plays in the future of digital experiences.
For marketers, this evolution is significant for several reasons. Firstly, the Sound of the Web’s literal function (converting data into sound) equips marketers with an effective back end tool to enable new insights to be gained from data. The sounds produced by sales data can then be used to help brands understand points of interest and hone in on some insightful key points.
Additionally, the significance of the Sound of the Web lies in its ability to explore ways in which a brand can be presented through sounds, and there are several great examples of campaigns creating digital sound experiences.
For instance, German digital conference, Interactive Cologne recently hosted an event which saw the conference transformed into an emotional concert experience for participants. The IP addresses of visitors’ smartphones were manipulated and transformed into a sequence of notes, which were then fed through the Cologne Cathedral organ. In essence, a series of numbers and data were used to create a unique sensory experience for attendees.
Similarly, Original Source, a body care products company, introduced sound to help its customers pick the new limited edition type of shower gel based on sound. To overcome the fact that customers can’t experience what the gel smells like over the internet, Original Source created a series of ‘Audio Showers’, reimagining different scents as unique sounds.
As advances in technology enable more natural human-machine interactions, brands need to look for ways to evolve their digital personalities to include sound interaction. As digital experiences continue to move away from screens, data and information can be presented to customers through the power of sound, and the leaders will be those that embrace this trend now.
By Gabriel Tamborini, creative director at Fjord, part of Accenture Interactive.