Designing with Sound

Chapter 9. Prototyping

DESIGNING SOUND IS A process that involves selling something invisible. You may need to use your imagination and give yourself and others the opportunity to compare their expectations with what you’ve created. This approach allows you to make suggestions in a streamlined way without so much explanation. A good prototype tells its own story.

Prototyping and testing assumptions early and often is important but is often overlooked by upper management. One demonstration of this comes from the marshmallow spaghetti tower challenge, an exercise that asks small groups to work together to build the tallest spaghetti structure strong enough to support the weight of a marshmallow. Studies on these sessions have proven that kindergarteners consistently build better structures than CEOs.¹ The reason? Kindergarteners tested their structures often to see if they bore the weight of the marshmallow, while CEOs waited until the building phase was completed before adding the marshmallow, only then discovering their structure did not survive the stress.

There are several stages at which you can test the quality, reaction to, and feasibility of sounds. The first stage is before the product is built. You can listen to a set of sounds with an interactive palette. You can mock up the product with paper prototypes, animations, or audio-only prototypes with contextual sounds. You can use existing products and overlay the considered sounds using the magic of video.

The second stage ...