uxWaterloo P2P - April 18th: Sound Design for User Experience

If you are interested in attending this session, please click on the Register Now link below.

Topic: Sound Design for User Experience

Speaker: Patrick Noonan of Akendi

Designers continue to push the limits of mobile display while hardware manufacturers continue to expand the size of their devices’ screens. As hardware manufacturers reach the limits of what constitutes a mobile device, interaction designers need to start thinking outside the screen by exploring alternative sensory pathways.

Anyone who has experienced the intrusion of music or sound effects on a website understands the drawbacks of audio interface objects. From a user’s perspective, sounds in websites and applications are an unexpected and unwelcomed intrusion that, in most cases, offer no additional information or value. For most UX designers, the emotional impact of audio makes the risk of turning away customers is too high to justify wading into the highly complex and technical domain of audio design. Many have simply accepted the old adage ‘silence is golden’ and abandoned audio altogether.

Patrick Noonan, of Akendi, will present audio design recommendations that target the limitations of mobile GUI’s. These recommendations will highlight the suitability of audio features on the mobile platform and illustrate how when the same user-centered design process traditionally applied to visual elements is applied to audio elements, the result is rich, immersive mobile experiences that can save your next mobile interface design.

Parking Note: If the visitor parking lot is full, there is alternative parking – Most street parking is 2 hours, but please be sure to read city parking signage for maximum time. Also, lot 3, 6, and 16 (refer to Parking map link) are pay lots for public parking. Parking Map link

**Additional Information
We want to let you know about some other events that may be of interest to group participants, so we thought we would include links to the following events:

Data Open Conference May 11 - Registration, speaker applications, venue information and more is available on our website: http://go-opendata.ca/

Group Information
Meetings alternate monthly from Tuesdays and Thursdays

Practicing designers, Product Managers, and Marketing professionals share design theories and thinking to improve and promote the user experience of products and services to delight the customer who will ultimately use them. Guest speakers lead off the session followed by Q and A, or roundtable discussion

Communitech Prime

Duncan McDowell, Communitech

Volunteer Co-Champions
Robert Barlow
Mark Connolly

Communitech's Peer2Peer Network is generously supported by BlackBerry