Involving Users in Sound Design Frederik Moesgaard, Lasse Hulgaard (&) , and Mads Bødker Department of Digitalization, Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark {frmo11ab,lahu12ab}@student.cbs.dk Abstract. Sound plays an important role in our well-being, our experience of the world around us and our understanding of products, services and interac- tions. Sound affects our sense of place, and it can modulate our feelings, agency and attention. In a world of increasingly ubiquitous digital technologies, sound may prove a valuable resource for sense making as well as experience- and UX design. Yet the possibilities and challenges of user participation in sound design processes are not well understood. This paper reports on a pilot study examining how participants can be involved in different phases of a sound design pro- cess. The results and reflections aim to help researchers and designers in an ef- fort to better understand some of the dynamics of moving from a largely expert driven approach to sound design towards a more user-oriented and participatory approaches. Keywords: Ambience Á User experience Á Co-creation Á Video prototype Á Sound design Á Sound prototype Á Sound sketching Á Soundwalks Á Participation 1 Introduction Most of us are surrounded and supported by digital technologies from the moment we wake up until we fall asleep. Moving towards a world where an increasing number of electronic devices will be demanding our attention, it is important for designers to consider and explore new ways of achieving meaningful user experiences that respect human attention and positively contribute to the experience of everyday life. With the abundant and ubiquitous access to computing resources (such as pervasive computing, the proliferation of embedded devices and systems, etc.), designers need to explore the creation of devices and services that allow for peripheral or even ‘natural’ interactions, where the interface essentially disappears into the environment and allows us to live our lives with less perceived technological friction and distraction (Case 2016). Important and seminal work in this field was carried out by Weiser (1991) and Weiser and Brown (1997) who advocated for ways in which digital technologies should aim to inform discretely, create calm rather than be spectacular, and require the smallest amount of focused attention. Historically the Graphical User Interface (GUI) paradigms that evolved in the 1970s and onwards have foregrounded the visual aspects of interaction design. Sound seems to be a design material that is somewhat marginalized (Case and Day 2019), and designers tend to forego auditory experiences as critical components of user © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Marcus and E. Rosenzweig (Eds.): HCII 2020, LNCS 12200, pp. 405–425, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49713-2_28