Sound Design is the Next Great Digital Frontier

Surprise and delight

London's Boris Bikes (below) have been part of the city’s bicycle hiring scheme for almost five years. But six months ago, the bikes at Waterloo Station started doing something different: they gave a little ring when they unlocked. Nothing fancy - just a charming, old-fashioned bicycle bell chime. This bit of sound does two things: it signals that your bike is all set and it yields a moment of surprise and delight. It's a simple but effective way to change the experience of using the Boris Bike.

Sound should be shareable. We share text, video and photography effortlessly - so, why not sound? Apps like Yappie - known as the Instragram of Sound - are successfully emerging because they allow consumers to record and customise 60-second audio clips and share them. You can filter your voice through a zombie, a robot, even a grape (yes, a grape) and it's likely that we will soon be able to play around with syndicated celebrity voice filters. (Imagine getting a personalized birthday greeting from someone like Samuel L. Jackson...)

You could also share your voice when leaving reviews for sites like Tripadvisor and do your own Attenborough impersonations —“we can hear kookaburras from our balcony in the Tablelands! Listen…”

Deepening the experience 

Shocking sounds also create a profound and enduring bond between the listener and the idea. Take the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) as an example. UNMAS wanted to relate problems regarding landmines and war explosives to a wider audience so it created Sweeper, an ibeacon enabled iphone app (below) that brought people face-to-face with the realities of living with landmines.

Music reviews are another use for integrated sounds. The Washington Post successfully combines concert and album reviews with audio clips to support the reporter's critique or allow the reader to form their own opinions. 

Accessibility

Lack of accessibility to a campaign or an idea is the greatest inconvenience to marketers and consumers.

Responding to a report that claimed a fifth of blind and partially-sighted people have to ask a stranger for help with their PIN at a cash machine, Barclays bank equipped over 80 percent of its machines with audio technology (below).

Audio is often overlooked - especially when compared with the sleek design of hyper-visual, touchscreen surfaces - but this initiative reminds us to consider each sense and how it can be practically applied and offer different solutions.

Sound is a huge part of any experience but it can also replace other senses. Japanese designer Masahiko Inami has experimented with VR and sound to test what impact it has on the wearer.

One such experiment was a headset designed for the elderly who were losing interest in eating and at risk of developing health problems. The headset triggered different sounds as wearers closed their jaws and chewed, which in turn encouraged them to regain their appetite. Another experiment from the same team was slightly less practical, but much more entertaining. Wearing the VR headset, the software was programmed to scream every time a wearer bit down on a piece of Jelly Baby Candy.

Cutting Through

Hardcore car fans will know that not much can be seen at auto shows because of the heaving crowds. 

Nissan's Pedal to the Metal campaign (below) playfully brought cars to life so potential customers could check out a car using sound to enrich their experience and in turn, helped to sell the car.

Personal training

Adidas and Spotify have teamed up and released the Adidas Go app, which matches songs according to the pace that you work out. 

This could pave the way for more augmented personalised fitness ecosystems. Imagine falling behind last week’s pace and hearing your voice (or your favourite celebrity’s) shout, “Step on it! You can go faster than this!”

Changing perceptions

Oxford University's research team has been exploring how sound can alter your perception of taste... leading them to believe that each sound has its own taste.

Using toffee to prove this theory, the team played music of lower and higher pitches to suggest the respective bitter and sweet tastes of the toffee. This got me thinking... what’s next? Playlists paired with wine? Soundtracks paired with coffee? (I’ll take a tall hazelnut with soymilk and Bob Dylan, please…)