On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 3:00 AM, Iain <i...@gnome.org> wrote: > Some thoughts on sounds. > > People don't use sound effects on the desktop. > One of the first things many people do is turn them off. > The only device I know where people don't turn them off is the iPod. > > We have a sound naming spec[1], yet no-one seems to care to design > sound schemes for them [2] > > I think the reason for this is twofold: > a) The sound naming spec specifies too many arbitrary sounds > b) The sound naming spec defines so many sounds that it is nearly > impossible to a sound designer to create meaningful sounds that > differentiate between the actions > > The sound naming spec defines 125 sounds. > That is 125 sounds for the user to learn the meaning of. > Because the sounds defined are incredibly arbitrary the sounds run the > risk of having their meaning overloaded. > For example, > We have complete-media-rip, complete-copy, complete-scan, but no > complete-print, no complete-fax. What sounds should be used for those? > Each time the sound is overloaded, it is a new meaning for the user to learn. > > With sounds like window-new, window-move-start, window-move-end, > window-minimized, window-unminimized will the computer ever be silent? > No wonder people turn the sounds off if they're going to make it sound > like there's a hyperactive child in the room screaming for attention > constantly.
---- 8< ---- Please remember that sounds are also a means of providing feedback to impaired users. It's true that 90% of sounds will not be used in a typical theme but it's also true that 95% of users don't need the High Contrast theme yet it's uber-useful for the remaining 5%. (Not exact numbers, statistics generated by rolling D100) -- Patryk Zawadzki _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list