[HN Gopher] The Sound of Software
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       The Sound of Software
        
       Author : davidbarker
       Score  : 25 points
       Date   : 2024-04-25 20:58 UTC (2 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.notboring.software)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.notboring.software)
        
       | ericyd wrote:
       | As a musician, sometimes sound designer, and web developer, I
       | find myself wondering which of these ideas could be migrated to
       | web apps. I definitely agree with the article's premise that
       | sound is often eschewed in software, and I think they make some
       | nice counter-arguments to support more sound in software.
       | However, sound on the web can add significant bandwidth to your
       | app, and the fact that it's very uncommon makes me wonder how
       | easy it would be to get users to be willing to interact with
       | sound controls in a web app.
        
       | chaosprint wrote:
       | for beginners I highly recomend this book:
       | 
       | https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262014410/designing-sound/
       | 
       | and pure data is great software to get started
        
       | alwa wrote:
       | I'm surprised at the suggestion to override the user's choice to
       | place the phone in silent mode. It sounds like they suggest
       | exploiting features designed for apps providing media playback
       | (or alarms?).
       | 
       | When would it ever be appropriate to force your ambient sound
       | design on a user who's specifically switched sound off? Isn't it
       | partly this sort of excess that leads users to keep their phone
       | on silent in the first place?
       | 
       | I felt relieved at their claim that 50-60% of users keep their
       | phone on silent. I'm only one of those users, but, designers, as
       | a single point of anecdata: no matter how tasteful you believe
       | your sound design is, treating my preference as a problem to be
       | circumvented will absolutely anger and alienate me.
        
         | eyelidlessness wrote:
         | It's amusing that that section immediately precedes a section
         | on giving users control. _I have exercised that control with
         | extreme prejudice_. If you think your app should get special
         | treatment contradicting that choice, I agree: your app will get
         | specially deleted, with special haste, and will then retain a
         | special place in my memory for being especially unwelcome on my
         | device.
        
       | TacticalCoder wrote:
       | Sound? Which sound? My main "workstation" has no sound. It
       | physically cannot emit sound.
       | 
       | And it can browse the Web just fine and allows me to work just
       | fine. It is exceptionally rare that I need something in a Youtube
       | vid and if I do, I turn subtitles on and watch at x2 speed: but
       | that happens maybe once a month, maybe not even that.
       | 
       | So, yup, don't count on me to write software that "emits sound".
       | 
       | The nice thing is that because there are deaf people out there
       | and because supporting handicapped people is a thing, the Web is
       | guaranteed to continue working just fine without any sound.
       | 
       | It's not that I don't like sound: on the contrary I'm listening
       | to music all day long, on a very nice hifi setup.
       | 
       | And I certainly don't want pesky sounds bothering my music
       | listening experience.
        
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