Deliverables
Product Sound, App Sound, Audio Logo, Audio Brand Strategy
Application
Product, App, TV Commercials, Social Media, Digital Content
Project Overview
Your alarm is the first thing you experience in your day — It should be pleasant, polite and seamless. When Hello came to us to rethink the way alarms should sound, we saw this as an opportunity to reinvent the conventional by creating dynamic soundscapes that are more pleasant for the end user. The end result changed the way designers think about designing auditory alerts, notifications, alarms and ringtones by addressing them in a more considerate, polite manner.
Reinventing the Conventional
From the get go, we knew we wanted to use dynamics as a driving principle to express the seamless transition between sleep and waking moments. The idea of waking light sleepers at the beginning of an alarm with a softer touch was a new and fresh approach that had rarely been designed for alarms to this point. Each alarm takes a considerate approach to design that evolves and develops gradually in order to address the wide user base of light to heavier sleepers.
Design System
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Lightness and Elegance
Space in composition and lighter textures and timbres
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Dynamic Layering
Slow, gradual builds designed for a range of sleepers from light – heavy
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Dynamic Filtering
Ambient soundscapes that ease transition from sleep to waking
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Considerate by Design
Softer approach to design that is polite and considerate of the end user
We used layers that come and go, build and fall to elegantly wake people rather than rudely force them awake.
Process
During our process we worked closely with the design and engineering team at Hello to ensure the design system was not only on brand, but also functioning properly on device. During user testing, we discovered that users appreciated the dynamic design system of alarms so much that we also created a suite of sleep tones to help people fall asleep.
Impact
The sounds we created for Sense spanned alarms, sleep tones, ui and sound logo for marketing and served as some of the most loved moments in the product — Even The Verge gave us a glowing review of our work. Unfortunately the device is no longer in production, but the design system we helped to create influenced how composers and designers think about designing more pleasant sound experiences for connected home devices the world over.
I’m a big fan of two clever bits of technology in the Sense system: the ambient sounds designed to gently put you to sleep and the gradual alarm devised to equally gently pull you out of it — it’s super neatly executed. I use the app to set up relaxing white noise for a half-hour playback in the evening and then — on the occasions when I’m actually in bed at alarm time — I seriously enjoy the soft and polite way it wakes me up.
The Verge
Alarms
Sleep Tones
The team at Hello worked with CMoore Sound on the sound identity for Sense. They took on the challenge of creating a diverse set of audio assets for Sense, and ended up creating a cohesive and recognizable sound aesthetic for the product that we extended across multiple features, powering some of the most-loved experiences with the product
Kevin Twohy, Director of Product
