Product sounds are important in our interactions with them. The temporal and context-dependent nature of sound makes it difficult to design them. There is a semantic gap between how we talk about sound and how it is embodied. Sound-driven design aims to improve this in two ways. It proposes a human-centered design approach, focusing on designing for the listening experience instead of purely the sound. Secondly, it proposes a collaborative approach, iteratively designing the listening experience with all stakeholders throughout the project.

The four stakeholders of sound-driven design work and design with sounds in different ways. Sound designers are brought in late into a project and work on sound solitarily. They are experts at bridging semantic gaps. Acoustic engineers are solution-oriented and think of sound in terms of noise elimination. Design researchers are experts in guiding design processes and incorporating user needs but are ill-equipped for sound. Expert users are well attuned to the sounds of their context, which is vital information for sound-driven design.

During group ideation, participants use generative session methods to generate solutions to a design problem. If this collaboration is managed effectively, a group outperforms its members. Generated ideas are larger in quantity, quality, variety, and originality. During idea generation, participants use their creative cognition to generate ideas. The dual pathways model of creativity states that creative cognition is the result of persistence and flexibility in thought. These two cognitive processes can be primed to enhance creativity.

Based on this theory I designed Soundstorm, a quick and collaborative card game. Players take turns making product sounds based on randomized prompts. It should be played before starting a generative session, and positively influences its outcomes. Soundstorm is meant to improve creative cognition by priming the persistence and flexible cognitive process. Soundstorm allows players to practice vocal expressions. Playing a collaborative game increases social cohesion.
Soundstorm was validated using a protocol study (n=18), in which 3 groups played a game before a brainstorm, and 3 did not. There was no increase in the number of ideas generated. There is an increase in iteration for the Soundstorm group, but the effect was not significant.

Future research into sound-driven design ideation should explore the fundamentals of sonic and verbal generative methods. Furthermore, sound-driven design should be applied in a collaborative project where problem and solution are allowed to coevolve over multiple iterations.

Hospitalized patients were found to sleep significantly worse in the hospital than at home. The lack of quality sleep can cause serious health problems and affect patients’ health recovery. Music as a low-cost sleep aid is a promising way to improve patients’ sleep. However, most available sleep music playlists are limited to generic, soothing songs. People’s personal preferences in relation to the effects of music are not well-considered and under-researched. Therefore, this project aims to explore how to design and deliver music that fits with patients’ sleep and music preferences with a profile-based personalization approach.
Literature research was first carried out to understand sleep knowledge, how and why music aid sleep, practices in music therapy and profile-based personalization. Through generative research, people’s preference data was collected and lead to four sleep music profiles: explorer, diver, hunter, observer. A design direction was proposed based on insights from the research activities. In the design phase, two brainstorming sessions were carried out and resulted in a feasible system concept. After two iterations, the final design DREAMe was proposed. DREAMe is personalized music modular system, including profile generation and music delivery. The profile generation logic allows the system to predict which profile users are based on a list of questions. Each profile comes with a sleep music module. To evaluate the music effects, sleep music samples were made under a summarized music design guideline. The music melodies of users’ favourite music come from instrumental covers of the songs participants provided. The resources downloaded online were used fairly and only for this evaluation purpose.
In project evaluation, results suggest that the product and profile experience are logical, intuitive, and easy to use. The four profiles can reflect people’s preferences, but they may not be stable. An eight-day evaluation was conducted to test the music effects on sleep. DREAMe music was found to reduce sleep onset latency and improve sleep quality. People could fall asleep more easily and feel more relaxed after two days’ music listening. The music design delivers a relaxing, enjoyable and immersive music experience.