On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 10:20 +0000, Iain * wrote: > On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Patryk Zawadzki <pat...@pld-linux.org> wrote: > > > > Please remember that sounds are also a means of providing feedback to > > impaired users. > > I knew someone would bring this up, and I actually meant to mention it > in the original mail but it was late and I was tired (etc) > > I actually totally disagree. Not because i dont think impaired users > are not important > but because they are a very special case who's needs are met by other > technologies > such as screen readers and screen magnifiers > much better than by sound themes and 125 arbitrary sound effects. > > This brings up another point that I forgot. The actual difficulty of > initially working out what a sound means. > Because the sounds are arbitrary there is no expectation[1] on the > part of the user that a certain action should create a sound > Which means that whenever a user hears a sound they need to try to > work out what it means. Was that swish new email or > CD burning finished? The user closes the laptop lid and hears > "lid-close" sound, thinks "what was that sound?" and opens the laptop > to check.
lid close is a bit of a dumb place to have a sound. Lets consider though that there are useful sounds for a moment, but some sounds are relatively useless to normal users if there isn't also a visual feedback. New email arrives - sound is emitted, email icon blinks in the notification area. File transfers complete, the file transfer icon flashes for a moment before fading out in the notification area. Apple have done a good job making sounds fit with what's happening. "This is what the positive sound concept is trying to solve" - is this a project? are there any links? It sounds like it would be great to have a project that considers the user experience benefits of desktop sounds. BR, K _______________________________________________ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
