Personæ: Users’ evaluation of a music technology education project

‘Personæ’ is an interactive large-scale space sound installation designed by the students of the music technology classes of the ‘V. Gambara’ music high school in Brescia (Italy). The activities that led to the conception and realization of the installation were part of ‘The Discovery of Interactive Spaces’ project, a set of extracurricular...

Exploring profiling and personalisation in sleep music design: Towards conceptualising musical sleep aids for hospital use

Music as a low-cost sleep aid is a promising way to improve the sleep quality of people. However, most available sleep music playlists are limited to generic, soothing songs, which do not take in account personalisation. In collaboration with the Neurology Department of the Reinier de Graaf hospital (Delft, The Netherlands), we explored a...

Semantic models of sound-driven design: Designing with listening in mind

Sound-driven design is a design practice informed by technology and listening in the multisensory dimension of interaction. An automated content analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews with sound designers, design researchers, engineers and expert users stressed the inherently embodied and situated conceptualisation of sound, and how it...

Quantum Mechanics, Ambiguity and Design: Towards a Framework

Quantum Mechanics could have fundamental impact on design models and measurement. Quantum mechanics allows us to fill in the blanks of classical models of design, through its ability to explain ambiguous states of design. An ambiguous state is where design exists in between two binary states, as a superposition. Designers are most likely to...

Conceptualising sound-driven design: An exploratory discourse analysis

Sound-driven design is an emerging, human-centered design practice informed by technology and listening in the multisensory dimension of interaction. In this paper we present a discourse analysis approach aimed at qualitatively understanding the constituent concepts of such a practice, by means of semi-structured interviews with sound...

Exploring Design Cognition in Voice-Driven Sound Sketching and Synthesis

Conceptual design and communication of sonic ideas are critical, and still unresolved aspects of current sound design practices, especially when teamwork is involved. Design cognition studies in the visual domain represent a valuable resource to look at, to better comprehend the reasoning of designers when they approach a sound-based project....