SonicDrop

  • Beata Zemanek
SonicDrop is an application designed for screenless experience. Currently most of the phone based applications are designed to viewed, which distracts the person from their surroundings, forcing them to focus entirely on the screen in order to consume content. With the advent of voice control applications such as Siri and Cortana, companies are recognising the huge potential in sound based apps. In terms of emotional impact we feel sound before we can hear it, this quality gives us an opportunity to implement sound into the design of product and services where we can emotionally influence the end user.

The initial funding to develop the idea for this app came from The Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance (SICSA). The application presented below is a proof of concept project and shows only the main features of the app, as due to time and resources we were not able to create a more elaborate version, we concentrated on the MoSCoW approach (must-have, should-have, could-have). Our aim for this project was to see how a soundscape can be presented within a social sphere and the users perception of it, plus if it’s possible to make sonic generated content appeal to a wider audience.


MY ROLE

The funding from SICSA was given to myself and a colleague, with whom I worked on the initial concept, wireframing, prototyping and usability testing. I developed the user interface for the application and also sourced a developer who would build the app, the subsequent briefing of the developers and regular status meetings and testing were all part of my role.