This paper addresses the integration of sound into product design and engineering. Recognizing a gap in design education, the study focuses on introducing product design and engineering students to the principles of product sound design (PSD). By means of interviews with experts and literature research, a three-level framework is developed, addressing product features, object composition, and environmental context. This framework can assist students in understanding how engineering decisions influence sound perception at the product level, how material and structural choices affect sound at the object level, and how environmental factors shape the overall auditory experience. The framework served as the foundation for conceptualizing Les Sons, an educational software tool that mirrors these levels in its architecture. Les Sons supports students in exploring and modifying product acoustics through component and material selection. The paper stresses the role of tools like Les Sons for product sound design education, in order to practice and enhance collaboration and shared understanding in multidisciplinary contexts.

Sound-driven design has roots in the history of Critical Alarms Lab (TU Delft) and emerged as a response to designers' need to tackle complex societal problems that cannot be solved by designing sounds only. In previous research, we discovered four different design approaches (designing THE, WITH, AGAINST sound FOR) and their corresponding problem (sonic, experiential, technical, and cultural) and solution (creative, integrative, mitigative, and purposeful) spaces. As such, we developed the ecologically-relevant TWAF framework to further understand the underlying mechanisms of sound-driven design. In this paper, we use the framework to demonstrate how different approaches are needed to holistically address complex issues when sound poses a societal threat or an opportunity for design especially in the healthcare context to improve the quality of the acoustic environment and listener experiences. With the case study in sound-driven design for healthcare, we demonstrated that sound-driven design shifts sound from being a by-product of the environment to an intentional, meaningful, and integrated experience enhancing well-being, sonic culture and quality of life.

The sound-driven design approach foregrounds the human-centred sonic, experiential and cultural aspects of listening. However, addressing the temporal and context-dependent nature of sound in multi-stakeholder, collaborative design projects is a challenging activity. Ideation methods are used to generate solutions to a design problem. During idea generation, participants use their creative cognition to generate ideas in quantity, quality, variety, and originality. If this collaboration is managed effectively, a group outperforms its members. We present Soundstorm, a collaborative card game to sensitise group-work in sound-driven generative design sessions. A pilot evaluation using a protocol study with 18 participants showed the potential of Soundstorm in facilitating iteration among team members. The study highlights the importance of putting effort and attention into preparing participants for productive generative sessions.

‘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 workshops organized by the authors of this article between spring 2019 and winter 2020 with the support of the Italian National Operation Program (PON). At the end of January 2020, the installation was presented during a public event and an evaluation questionnaire was administered to 79 visitors. The purpose of this research is to assess how the public, students, parents, teachers and classmates received the ‘Personæ’ installation, and the technology integration within regular study curricula. While the majority of visitors have well received the artistic and communicative value of the installation, the questionnaire reveals that there is not a similar uniformity of agreement on some aspects of technology integration in school curricula.

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 relates to their professional activity. The four categories of professionals bring in different designerly orientations towards sound. Listening, as a way of knowing by using sound in interaction, proves to be the red thread between the participants’ semantic models. Overall, the findings contribute to characterise the concept of sound in current design practices, and position the role of nonverbal, yet auditory representations in the design process.

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 be unfamiliar with quantum mechanics, as well as the subject of quantum mechanics being complex and sometimes contradictory to human scale mechanics. By discussing the opportunities of quantum mechanics for design, we are proposing a framework to model and measure ambiguous dimensions of design through quantum superpositions. The proposed framework includes the dimensions for the directionality of design (convergence or divergence), the degree of design embodiment (from low to high) and the decision-making of the designer (yes to no). Once the designer attempts the measurement of a superposition, a binary state can be distilled. For the act of designing, filling in the blanks is equal to sculpting away superposed states. In this philosophy, to design is to measure. This early stage research raises areas of opportunities and suggests further research directions for quantum mechanics and design.

The chairs' editorial for the theme track 'Sound and Design'

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 profile-based personalisation approach to deliver music that fits with people' sleep and music preferences. Through generative research, we collected people's preference data and proposed four, evocative sleep music profiles: The Explorer, the Diver, the Hunter, and the Observer. The results of the profiling evaluation suggest that the profile experience is credible, intuitive, and easy to use. Four profiles can reflect people's preferences, but may not be stable.

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. A design exercise involving a team of professional sound designers is analyzed, and discussed in the framework of the Function-Behavior-Structure ontology of design. The use of embodied sound representations of concepts fosters team-building and a more effective communication, in terms of shared mental models.

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 designers, design researchers, engineers and expert users in the context of critical care. Preliminary results show that sound-driven design is inherently embodied, situated, and participatory, that the four categories of interviewees equally contribute to the definition of the design problem, and yet that a clear, shared arena is still missing.