Did you know that a sound file entitled 158-marimba.aiff is played millions of times around the world each day? But what is it? Well it’s not Lady Gaga’s latest. Rather, it’s the ubiquitous iPhone alert known as “Tri-Tone.” But before it was the iPhone noise we either all love or hate, it was Apple’s way of telling you an app was installed. And before that it was the noise iTunes made to alert a user that a CD was done burning.
This short sound bite has a storied history but was originally developed by Kelly Jacklin for the pre-cursor to iTunes, an app called Sound Jam. Of course, the sound didn’t just fall out of mid-air. According to Jacklin, a lot of thought went into the environment the sound would be consumed in.
I was looking for something “simple” that would grab the user’s attention. I thought a simple sequence of notes, played with a clean-sounding instrument, would cut through the clutter of noise in a home or office. So I had two tasks: pick an instrument, and pick a sequence of notes. Simple, right? Yeah, says you; everyone’s an armchair musician. …
I was really into the sound of marimbas and kalimbas at the time, so I thought I’d try both of those. I also went through bank (after bank) of sounds built into the SW1000XG, auditioning instrument sounds, and found three other instrument sounds that I liked: a harp, a koto (Japanese zither), and a pizzicato string sound (that’s the sound a violinist makes when plucking the string, rather than bowing it).
For the notes, I wanted a 3-note sequence, or perhaps 4 notes. I was going for simple, and didn’t have much time to devote to being creative, so no fancy timing here, just sequenced notes. I wanted a happy feel, so notes from the major scale, focusing on I, III, IV, V, and VIII (the octave).
Now a normal person would have just started playing around on the keyboard. But I’m not normal, and decidedly not a keyboardist… So I went all “left brain” on this one (I’m normally used to avoiding that side of the brain when playing guitar or recording), and decided to write a program to generate the various permutations of the notes.
An afternoon of work later, 158-marimba.aiff was born alongside more than 25 alternatives. So why did Jacklin put forth the effort to create the tone? Simple, to create a memorable user experience. It’s details like the sounds chosen to alert users that take an app from good to great. Providing a tone to pierce through the noise clutter of an office, while still soothing the ear shows that the developer cares about the end user.
Of course, usability isn’t all about look and feel. Rather it’s about expectation and intuition. What do users expect out of an app, and how can a developer empower their users to understand how the app is being used? Paying attention to the details and putting yourself in the shoes of your user will enable you to create more fluid experiences. So next time you’re questioning whether a workflow or interface feature needs polish or not, think back to Kelly Jacklin and the thought put into creating an easily identifiable and memorable sound to alert the user into action.