Sound Cues

Sound features are common throughout the Windows Operating system, and several on the Mac OS. The sound features allow warnings to the user, and are particularly helpful for people with visual disabilities. These sounds can come in many different varieties, including chimes, bells and pings.

The pitch and length of the sound usually refers to what type of alert or acknowledgement has happened. Friendlier sound effects are used mostly for welcoming you onto the operating system or notifying the user that they have clicked on the “up a level” button.

Warning sounds are higher pitched, created to grab your attention. Things like closing a program without saving your data would often result in this type of sound. These sounds are helpful, especially with things like forgetting to save your work.

Users benefit from these sounds, and they don’t occur repeatedly which means the user will not get annoyed at hearing the sound over and over. More benefits of these sounds are that they alert and make aware the user has done something, especially something wrong.

Sound throughout the web, however, is a different story. Sites tend not to use sounds on their websites as they are usually annoying and frustrating for the viewer. Sites that use sounds tend to choose unnecessary and weird sounds and sometimes full soundtracks, thinking it improves their site, when really it just tells people to click back as soon as they hear it.

Sites with soundtracks are also a way of turning people off. There is probably a small percent of viewers that actually find music on a website a good thing. At least with some sites you have the option to mute the sound. This shows that they have thought about the consequences of sound on the net, and have found a way around it for viewers that don’t want to hear it.

Sites with soundtracks
Diggerland website
Various Myspace pages

A lot of web designers don’t use sound as the music files themselves can be quite large, slowing the loading speed of the site.

One good thing about sound on the internet is its use on the browser you are using. When you click back or forward you will hear a little notification click that lets you know you have pressed it. This noise also appears on some site links, letting you know that you have pressed it.

Another, is for interactive websites made directly at children. Children need sounds and movement to learn. I feel that the sounds implemented on these sites helps them dramatically, as well as making them entertaining and fun to use. The Winnie the Pooh site and the Cbeebies site do this very well.

Conclusion
Using this feedback I have received, I have come to the conclusion that sound is good for the right things, and off putting and annoying for the rest. Sound is also good for receiving error messages. Putting sound on the website would be a big mistake, as it’s unprofessional and annoying. I will not be using sound, although I do feel that I will have to learn how to implement sound into websites at some point as it will probably be needed in the future. I will also not use it as it will make the file size of the site larger, increasing loading times.