Sounds in UX Design
Sound can significantly enhance the users' experience and be useful where GIU can not. All that it takes is to put good sounds in the right places. In order to be successful in finding good sounds for your project, let’s explore what kind of sounds are there, what their functions are, and where we actually need to use them.
We can divide UI sounds into 2 groups, notification sounds and interaction sounds. Notification sounds draw the user's attention to a certain event. Interaction sounds react to the user's actions. The advantage of notification sounds is that it is independent from the GUI, the only thing that can attract our attention is a sound notification. So, sounds can broaden our possibilities. Interaction sounds are a part of our interface. They are complementary to it as they impact the auditory sense. It is always pleasing to sense the results of your activities and to realize that everything went well.
We need to ask ourselves what should produce sound in our app and why? The most important thing is not to overdo it. We don't want our app to sound like a slot-machine. Only the sounds that provide useful information or improve the user's experience should stay.
Together with graphic components, sounds must create a harmonious picture with just one style. In many cases, a simple click or a pop-sound would be enough. It is a bad idea to use sounds that are not a good match to the graphic interface. Like a logo, sounds can become part of our visual identity. We must be careful and make sure that the sounds are not too frequent. Frequent sounds may irritate users.