Re: Sound effects

[Lennart Poettering <mztabzr 0pointer de>]

On Fri, 12.12.08 10:20, Iain * (iaingnome gmail com) wrote:

> 
> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Patryk Zawadzki <patrys 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.

You know, carefully chosen event sounds should of course be able to
tell the user what is going on.

Just because it is possible to design shitty sound themes it doesn't
mean they have to be shitty. And again check the MacOS sound theme. it
is pretty good.

Also, the spec supports translated event sounds. i.e. that would allow
you to define a theme where a nice girl's voice tells you "You've got
mail." It's pretty hard to misunderstand that, right?

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering                        Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net         ICQ# 11060553
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