Audio Cues

Most sounds are seen as annoying so it is no surprise that most web sites don’t use them.

This doesn’t mean that non do however, www.valyard.ru is an example of one web site which does.

The site takes a long time to load and uses a very annoying squeaking type sound almost constantly whilst it is loading. This is followed up a lightning type sound which appears to be every time the percentage increases.

The sound, I assume, is there to make the user aware that the site is still loading as most users may open a different screen and be doing something different whilst the site is loading. Personally however I think that the visual cues of the site are enough to alert the user that the page is still loading as I think most would simply turn off their speakers after a few seconds of the very annoying sound.

Once in the website there are numerous sounds used, mostly background sounds. There is however sounds when you click on buttons. Again these sounds are quite annoying, high pitched beeps. These once again annoy the user and seem rather pointless.

An obvious example of a website that uses sound is the Playhouse Disney website. As this is a childrens website sounds are used to engage small children. This begins as soon as the site loads with a welcome message and continues with a song looping in the background. Although this song will probably become very annoying to most adults there is no doubt children love it.

Sounds are also used when navigating. As you scroll over the navigational buttons a little popping sound is made. This alerts small children to the idea that if something 'pops' it is clickable and therefore a good learning tool.

A similar thing is also used for the main navigation, however instead of a popping noise it actually reads aloud the links, again his is a good learning tool for small children.

Of course it is not only websites which use sound to convey information. Operating systems also use sound as cues.

Examples of this include starting up your computer (when the OS loads generally you will hear a sound to alert you of this fact), error messages (upon doing an incorrect action, a loud thud style noise is usually heard, this alerts the user that there action is incorrect and are usually accompanied by visual cues too). Yet another example of audio cues in operating systems is when emptying the trash can. Again this is usually accompanied by a scrunching of paper type sound which alerts the user that the trash is now empty.

Personally I feel that using sounds on my web site will be pointless. The main reason I think this is because users may not be able to hear the sounds and so anyway in which I use sounds would have to be accompanied by some sort of visual cue also which would then increase the file size making the page load time longer. Another reason is like stated before, most users find them annoying even if they can hear them.

If I were to use audio cues on my web site however I would probably use them in a couple of key places.

The first would be when a user clicked ‘check out’ to purchase their songs. This would alert the user that they were going to purchase their music instead of viewing their ‘basket’ which is also an option.

I would also include a sound for if the user entered any information incorrectly. Sometimes when entering details online the error message can appear below the ‘fold’ of the page and users (especially new users) could find this confusing.

I may also add a little bit of sound to when users click to download a song so they know it has been added to their cart instead of them having to rely on knowing where their cart is, or scrolling back up the page to see if it has been added.