Winner of the ICAD 2019 Best Paper Award!
So, who are you?
I’m a sound interaction designer working for Volvo Cars in Gothenburg Sweden. My job is to take a care of the auditory experience in current projects as well as to look into the future of sound interaction in automobiles. My personal goal is to spread the need for thinking sound at the early stages of every project we are working on. We continuously should improve the intuitiveness of our interfaces through thoughtfully orchestrated multimodal experience. One of our takes on more intuitive interfaces of the future is the Sound Interaction in Intelligent Cars (SIIC) research project funded by Vinnova, Sweden’s innovation agency. We are exploring how more continuous and intuitive sound interaction can help people trust and learn new technology, feel lower motion sickness in autonomous cars and do all of that in an aesthetically desirable way.
How did you end up working on Sonification and Auditory Displays?
While studying cognitive science and acoustics, it became obvious to me that auditory perception is a topic which highly interests me. Since then, I’ve been working with sound professionally and as a hobby (interactive art installations). Auditory displays are part of any interface, either digital or analog. What surprises me is that we still don’t pay enough attention to sound in our designs, either small like applications or big like city planning. By working with sound, I highlight its importance and need for more intuitive and aesthetically pleasing sound interactions.
What is the role of Sonification/Auditory Display in your research?
Auditory displays in automobiles are quite simplified. The current toolbox operates on short chimes carrying in urgency. In the SIIC project we are introducing new ways of designing sound interactions in cars. We are suggesting real-time sound generation which allows to sonify any type of car and passenger data and communicate, guide and in general affect car users. Our goal is to introduce several different types of sound interactions ranging from very subtle sonification of the necessary data to build trust and help the users learn the new systems to gamification of the ride for higher enjoyment and immersion.
What would you like to say to ICADders?
Have a look at our project website and our publications and examples and share any thoughts and comments you have (https://siicproject.wordpress.com/) or let’s talk next time we see each other on ICAD.
What is the most challenging part in your work?
The most challenging but as well the most rewarding part of my job is to introduce sound thinking at early stages of the design process. I’m helping people to understand how important it is to consider how the soundscape of our products will be shaped and share the toolbox which goes far beyond short chimes we have been using in automobiles until now.
Best sonification/auditory display ever?
I’m a huge fan of vocalisation as a type of sonification, which helps to explore and share the ideas of what and why we could/should communicate to our users. Check Soundscapes exercise from this website https://medium.com/@itsmejon/a-list-of-creative-exercises-for-creative-teams-c43b36f9dbde