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.

Despite the fact that product sounds have been shown to have a significant impact on the experience of products, product sounds are rarely considered in design projects and design education at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering. Research through literature review and expert interviews revealed that product sound design requires an interdisciplinary approach. A framework was created from different areas of product sound design. This framework separates that product sounds are influenced on three levels. The first is the product features, i.e. the components that act as a sound source. At this level, it is most important to consider how acoustic and engineering decisions can influence the perception of sound as derived from psychoacoustics. The second level, the object level, is about factors that influence the composition of the product and is mostly based on knowledge from subfields of musicology. The third level, the scene level, considers the sound of the product together with its use and location. This makes it possible to assess whether the external influences still result in the desired sound. Based on this framework, a digital audio design tool was developed. The purpose of this tool was to give practical examples of how sounds can be changed. This is achieved by providing parameters that have an impact on the engineering of a product, such as the choice of components and materials, and by allowing a composition of all the features to create the sound of the whole product. Finally, external factors such as the user’s interaction with the product and the influence of the context in which the product’s sound is heard can also be modelled. User testing has shown that this tool allows creative exploration of possible product sounds, while being concrete enough to gather initial design objectives. As an ideation tool, it provides direction for the further development of the product, taking into account its sound.

Sound in UX design can be used in a variety of ways; to navigate the interaction, for branding, to set the ambience etc. The importance of sound for the user experience of a product is undeniable; however, this is not represented in the practices of UX designers. UX designers lack the tools and knowledge needed to integrate sound design into their prototyping activities. As a result, the sound is often considered last-moment, limiting the creative potential and added value of sound in the interaction. This report explores the possibilities of integrating sound design activities into the practices of UX designers. This is done through design research activities such as interviews, co-creation sessions, creating (interactive) prototypes and user testing. The aim of the project is to provide UX designers with prototyping tools for sound design. Common sound design tools are difficult to integrate in prototyping activities as UX designers often lack the skills and knowledge needed to operate these tools in a quick-paced and iterative way; which is needed in order to facilitate prototyping. Furthermore ways of bridging the semantic gap between the stakeholders is explored as well as the potential of tangible interfaces in making sound design more intuitive and engaging for UX designers. Finally, a concept is introduced: The Timbreworld, parts of which are embodied in an interactive prototype. The Timbreworld is a (tangible) interface for sonic sketching, it enables its users to create quick and iterative sound prototypes. The interactive prototype has been tested with participants and evaluated based on the design guidelines provided in the report

takeUthere is a digital product design for nurses in the hospital to reduce working stress during work break time. As the professions that help people solve health problems, the hospital staff pay attention to the patientʼs physical condition all the time, including nurses, they face complex and difficult tasks every day. During the work, they need to follow orders from the head nurse and physicians, regulate mood for patients and their families, monitor the medical equipment, track the data and write reports for information sharing with colleagues, etc. This type of work challenges a nurse's professional skills, psychological enduring capacity, sense organ enduring capacity. Metally overwhelming becomes normal status in nursesʼ daily working time. Therefore, providing a balance between sensory and mental during the work break by regulating their mood has its value to be explored. This graduation project aims to solve this problem by introducing a product/service solution. It cooperates with TU Delft Critical Alarms Lab, which focuses on sound-related research and design, in the area of healthcare, academic hospitals, etc. The main goal is to reduce the daily working pressure of nurses through sound and music, therefore creating a positive mood to face their work. The outcome of the project - takeUthere digital product introduced a sound-driven experience in which nurses can enjoy short-term relaxation. It provides detailed sound from a daily office object. The user needs to find it and scan it on the APP. Then it delivers a fantastic charming scenario with 360-degree panorama visuals cooperating with relaxing scenario music. The final design includes APP user experience design, panorama visual design, and scenario sound editing. Moreover, it successfully convinced 8 participants with its unique fun experience. It shows the values for further development possibilities and improvement ideas. It also concluded new implementation opportunities areas followed by future recommendations. The project leads to the following conclusions: (1)Away from stress - design for nurses to use during work break. (2)Suitable for different types of user habits. (3)Simplified interaction yet targeting the problem. (4)Be engaged in the short story. takeUthere, let the sound bring you to a scenario that you ever dreamt of.

Current earphone designs follow a universal approach, which might fit average body shapes comfortably but lead to discomfort for others. Leveraging technologies like AI, simulations, and digital models enables efficient creation of personalized products at scale (Sony, 2018). With the development of new AM techniques, printing options are becoming faster and the materials more versatile. Techniques for printing flexible materials, such as silicones and printing multiple materials within the same print (Rossing et al., 2020), allow a larger scale of design properties, increasing the possibilities for which products will be fit for mass customisation. When people customise or personalise a product, they intensify their emotional connections to the product (Mugge et al., 2009). Involving customers in the creation of their earphones leads them to be more emotionally invested in the product. To create a personalised product, it is essential to obtain data of the individual body part as everyone is unique. For this project, the customer should be able to scan their ears by themselves at home. To evaluate which scanning methods best represent the shape of the ear while being easy to use, the 3D scanning methods and the physical representations of those scans are validated. Through tests it is determined that the Truedepth scanner provides the best results for the envisioned use case of scanning at home. Customers perform multiple activities per day with which they would prefer to use their earphone. By designing for extreme use cases (dancing with lots of head movements and long consecutive use of the earphones), the design is expected to perform well in other use cases as well. Since earphone tips provide the main point of retention in the ear, they typically are the cause of irritation among users. To increase the level of comfort, the pressure should be equally distributed to parts of the concha. The concept Seal is based on the Truedepth scan data of the concha. Seal distributes the retention force across the concha, rather than providing retention in the auditory canal. The part that fits in the cymba concha is made of flexible material, providing a softer touch and therefore more comfort. The seal creates a sealing effect at the entrance of the auditor canal using a flexible collar. Therefore, it does not need to enter the auditory canal which means that its audio canal can remain short. The advantage of this is that the seal fabricates as little extra geometry as possible. The prototypes show that it is possible to design earphones based on scanned data that are gathered by a smartphone or tablet. This provides the customer with new listening experiences. However, the success of the concept partly depends on the availability and the quality of scanners in smartphones in the future.