Sound is an integral component of the product experience, and if designed through the brand lens, it can also be used across product marketing to bring commercials to life and tie directly back to the product experience.

Sound design has the power to create a tangible bond between consumers and their favorite brands. By leveraging the psychology of sound, marketers can craft experiences that evoke nostalgia, comfort, urgency, or excitement.

Integrate sound seamlessly into your branding strategy by taking a closer look at the role of sound design in product marketing.

Building Emotional Connections and Brand Affinity

Sound has a profound capacity to elicit emotional responses. In product marketing, this means the right sound can tap into a customer’s deep-seated desires and memories. The right sound design ensures your customers feel a positive response anytime they power on their devices or receive a notification. If you carry these sounds across your marketing campaigns, they can boost recall and affinity outside of just the product experience. This feeling can echo through your marketing to help create a unique and iconic brand.

For example, at CMoore Sound, we worked with Peloton to create their product sound ecosystem and startup sound, which became a sound logo for the whole brand. Sound design is incredibly versatile and paints a vivid picture for your customers. Our experts in UX sound design work with brands to find the perfect soundscape for their products because it makes a profound difference. Not only does it make products sound better, but it also impacts how brands can build affinity with consumers.

Enhancing the User Experience and Powerful Storytelling

Well-designed product sounds are primarily created to increase functionality and boost accessibility within the product experience, but they’re also an opportunity to add delight and help tell the brand story.

Whether it’s the evocative soundscapes of luxury car brands such as Lucid Motors or the acoustic soundscape of a Google device, a product’s sound design plays a key role in enhancing functionality and supporting brand.

A consistent and distinct audio presence is key to not only being heard but also remembered. When synchronized with the visual components of a campaign, sound can serve as the glue that binds the narrative together, amplifying the emotional impact. A key role of sound design in product marketing is showcasing your brand and product story, ensuring your sonic branding becomes a beacon of reliability to customers.

Showcasing Your Values

Strategic sound design should be an integral part of your brand and product experience, supporting your brand values. This allows you to tailor your storytelling to make the right impression that is cohesive with your ideal brand positioning.

Using stock sounds in a product or advertisement alienates more than it engages and can disassociate people from your curated brand experience. Instead, you should aim to use the sounds consumers have come to know across marketing to build trust and affinity for your product and brand.

So, how do you strike the perfect balance? While it’s crucial to be audible, do so with a level of subtleness and alignment with your brand’s values. Creating a successful sound design plan requires being true to the message of your brand, whether your sound design prioritizes a feeling of luxury, innovation, excitement, or something else entirely. Reinvent your product sound design today to refine the user experience and start engaging with more customers.

Sound design is integral to ensuring products are accessible to a massive range of people with unique needs. We see sound as a tool in the multimodal tool kit that you can use alongside visuals and haptics to create more informative, intentional experiences that can be beneficial to a large range of users.

Through intentional sound design, products can become more inclusive, providing auditory cues that guide users in their interaction with technology. This approach enhances usability for people with specific auditory, visual, or neurodivergent needs. It also improves overall user experience by offering alternative ways to receive information. Ensuring sound design is accessible involves understanding the diverse needs of users and implementing solutions that address these needs. Find out the essential ways sound can make products more accessible so that you can tailor your design to serve as many customers as possible.

Establishing an Accessible Identity

Sound design has evolved to encompass a broader spectrum of auditory experiences to achieve true inclusivity, utilizing a variety of pitches, intensities, instrumentation, and delivery methods to communicate with all users. With a more intentional approach, sound experiences should be specifically designed for each interaction and pleasant enough to not distract from the product experience. Most importantly, these sounds should reflect your brand and the emotions you want to evoke in the user.

Our case study with Hello Sense shows how we created their sound identity while building an ecosystem of sound that supports a range of customers. Creating alarms that start gently with minimal volume or complexity softly wakes light sleepers. As the alarms develop over time, they become more musical and complex to wake heavy sleepers, providing a spectrum of design that supports diverse needs.

Multimodal Design Systems

Providing feedback through multiple sensory channels can enhance accessibility for users with different needs. Certain interactions are best presented through visuals, haptics, or sound—sometimes a combination of two or three of these. Get a strong understanding of the context of the situation and use the medium that is most effective to notify or alert users so that it’s not overly weighted in sound.

Sensory-Friendly Design

Sound design should consider users with sensory sensitivities. Avoiding sudden, loud, or jarring sounds can make products more accessible to users with sensory-processing disorders or autism-spectrum disorders. Rather than using high-pitched, percussive tones, consider adding a light sweep at the beginning of sounds that ease into the peak of the sound so as not to cause alarm or fatigue.

Clear and Consistent Design

Consistency in sound design is essential for users with neurodivergent conditions such as ADHD or autism, and it also benefits the brand in terms of recognition and recall. Using clear, consistent, and predictable auditory cues helps users understand how the product works and reduces cognitive load.

User Customization

Offering users the ability to customize sound settings according to their preferences can also enhance accessibility. This might include volume control, the ability to turn off specific sounds, or the option to replace default sounds with ones that are more easily distinguishable or preferable to the user and their specific needs.

Overall, sound design can play a crucial role in making product experiences more accessible by providing additional sensory information and feedback that complements visual interfaces, making them more inclusive and usable for a wider range of users.

Expanding Your Testing Phase

The ways that sound makes products more accessible may seem straightforward at first, but you can measure your success during the testing phase. It’s critical to test products for many reasons, and one should be determining how accessible your product is.

Put your product in the hands of a range of users with different needs so that you can evaluate their experience. These evaluations offer invaluable feedback, highlighting areas where sound design can evolve from merely accessible to deeply intuitive and inclusive. Leveraging real human experiences ensures that every alert, notification, or chime genuinely enhances usability for everyone.

Start working with an audio expert today to develop products that hit your audience’s ears perfectly. At CMoore Sound, our sound design agency develops a wide range of user experiences across many products using carefully curated audio cues. Work with an expert who understands your auditory needs and can bring your vision of an accessible, quality product to life.

Sound has always been a part of the product experience. Whether it be the ringing of a telephone or the dial on an old telephone, sound has served a functional purpose of grabbing a users attention or reinforcing an action. As technology has advanced, engineers have been able to get rid of most mechanical noise made by products and the alerts and sounds that were once purely functional are now more curated and customized to the product or brand. What was once a really loud buzzer to signal that your laundry was dry can now be a much softer sound that won’t  cause stress or annoyance. The ringing of phones and alarms once sounded the same and tended to be extremely loud and obnoxious for their purely functional purpose, but now can be customized to the user or the brand. Even car engine sounds are changing with the mass adoption of EV’s. As EV’s become more prevalent, the soundscape around traffic is changing and has the opportunity to become more unique and potentially/hopefully quieter. Across all of these different products, apps and experiences with AR, VR or XR provide an opportunity to curate our soundscapes in a more intentional way. 

Over the last several years, the interest and demand of using sound as a more strategic component to branding has increased dramatically. In the past, sound branding was just seen in the form of the sonic logo. Today, brands are starting to understand the value of using sound branding in the form of ux sound for their products, apps and experiences. As this growth in demand is happening, I’ve become more and more aware of how important it is for sound to be used judiciously in these experiences. As new products, apps and experiences enter the marketplace, the natural conclusion is to think that our soundscapes will get dramatically louder. This could very well prove to be true if not approached correctly and this is why it is more important now than ever for brands to be thinking strategically about curating the sound for these experiences. So, what should designers be considering in order to create more effective sound experiences that won’t add to the noise? 

Less is Often More

People are very sensitive to sound — the last thing you want to do in a product experience is overuse sound. This tends to create an annoying user experience that increases listener fatigue and actually makes the experience less effective. Using sound in products needs to be a very strategic process where guardrails are set for best practices that help to guide how, when and where sound will be used. Sound is the spice in the mix that should add a layer of depth, not call too much attention to itself.

Brand Opportunity

Creating sound for products, apps and experiences is all about striking a balance between enhancing functionality while boosting brand awareness. Get a strong understanding of the brand and how it wants to express itself while also researching the products and brands in the competitive market to develop ideas on how you can differentiate and stand out. What are the brand or design principles? What is the roadmap for future products and how can you harmonize the experiences? Try to find key moments that you can lean on in order to align the visual and sound experience to enhance the overall brand narrative.

Boost Accessibility

Sound can be added as a tool in the larger multi modal toolkit to support visuals and haptics in a user experience. Adding sound that is rooted in psychoacoustics and music theory will help in creating a more informative and functional experience to a range of users. The key with this is to not overuse sound, but use sparingly alongside visual or haptic cues to not cause fatigue or confusion.

Spectrum of Design

Different interactions in a user experience require different types of attention and should be structured and designed that way. In the automotive space, a seatbelt chime is a very different type of alert than a forward collision warning or a welcome sound. These should all be designed specific to the intent of the communication on a spectrum that is specifically created for the experience being designed.

Build in Flexibility

When creating sound for a product, the team should consider how the sound experience will translate outside of this specific context. Hopefully, the brand will be able to use some of these sounds for marketing purposes for television and digital content. If this is the case, designers should have ideas on how ux sounds can be more dynamic and robust for marketing efforts. Some brands have multiple products with different speakers and contexts that sounds need to scale to – Designers and brands need to consider those playback systems and ask the question of how can they maintain a quality and cohesion across multiple touchpoints and products.

Understand the Capabilities

Every product experience is unique with different environments they live in and different speakers or playback systems. It’s very important to understand the context of the environment and speaker so you can design specifically for the limitations. Get a speaker spec from the brand as soon as possible and make sure to begin design with those frequencies as a guide. Lastly, try to get your design into a build of the product or app early in the design process to see how things are working on the device so you can get ahead of iterating for real life experience.

Sonic Testing

There are typically many stakeholders involved in the design process and getting them on board with the creative concepts is obviously an important part of the process, but you should also consider testing with a third party to get an objective review of how sounds are being perceived at scale. Having a larger test group of varying demographics can help to show how the sounds are communicating certain brand principles while also ensuring that the sounds are communicating the correct intent from a functionality perspective.

Visuals have long taken center stage, while sound remains an oft-overlooked design feature in the vast landscape of user experience (UX) design. Just as a well-scored movie soundtrack can raise emotion and set context in a film, sound has a profound impact on how users interact with digital platforms.

The user experience should be satisfying and intuitive for customers, and that requires a well-crafted auditory strategy to achieve. User experience sound design, or UX audio, is the practice of enhancing interactions in digital products and interfaces through auditory elements.

It’s not just about adding sounds; it’s about understanding how those sounds influence user behavior, engagement, and emotional response. A subtle notification, a crisp, or muted, button click, or a lush startup sequence—these sounds can turn a transactional experience into a multisensory engagement.

This deep dive into the world of UX sound design is for the designers and creative minds crafting journeys for the digital consumer. Take a closer look at the dos and don’ts of user experience sound design to craft the ideal user experience for your audience.

The Dos of User Experience Sound Design

The small details in a product experience matter. These tiny nuances affect the perceived value of your products and thus your brand. Your sound design will influence how users feel about your product, with some designs being obnoxious and annoying, while others seamlessly guide customers through their experience. You can use a variety of strategies to elevate the user experience when it comes to incorporating sound. Let’s assess the critical things you must do to accomplish the perfect UX design.

Do Prioritize Sonic Transparency and Consistency

The best sound experiences are often those that you barely notice. UX sound design should blend so seamlessly with the product you pair it with that it feels effortless. These sounds exist to inform the user, not annoy them. Sonic elements should also have a common through line of tonality, key signature and timbre throughout the product experience, providing auditory cues that you can easily recognize and suit the brand’s overarching persona.

Consistency and cohesion help to define, or support, the overarching brand sound and can also boost functionality. Once users begin to be acquainted with your overall tonal palette, they can at times operate across multiple apps while still understanding your product or apps language.

Do Use Sound as an Enhancer, Not a Distraction

Beyond making sure it’s not obnoxious, you should make sure your UX sound design is intentionally crafted to the interaction. Consider the context of the ux and design on a spectrum of more branded vs more functional. Create buckets that show how the sounds scale across this spectrum in order to create an enhanced audio user experience.

For example, a fast four note sequence in the high pitch range is ideal for a more important or severe alert whereas a warm, soft, melodic hook might be better for more branded moment such as a product startup. Think about how your audience is interacting with the product or app when they hear the sound design.

The aim is to complement the visual elements, not compete with them and certainly to not fatigue a user. Use sound where it adds value, such as when confirming an action, alerting to a change in status, or providing feedback. An engaging interaction sound can be just as satisfying as a smooth animation or a crisp typeface.

Do Understand The Device Speaker and Context

We design for a range of products, from mobile apps to cars and robotics. Each of these examples use a wide range of different speakers in unique environments which a designer must fully understand before getting into design.

A sound experience for a mobile app will largely live in the mid to high range frequencies due to its smaller speaker profile whereas designing an audio user experience for in vehicle has the ability to use the full in car system. When designing alerts and notifications for in vehicle, you have the full frequency spectrum to design in the lower pitch range and use sound that people can feel sometimes more than hear.

The Don’ts of User Experience Sound Design

While integrating sound in UX can be powerful, it can also fall flat if you don’t handle it with care. You may make many common missteps when crafting your UX sound design, but we can help you avoid those right now. Examine the don’ts of user experience sound design so you can account for them in every step of your UX strategy.

Don’t Create Noise Pollution

“Simplicity is key,” is one phrase you should always have in mind when implementing the dos and don’ts of user experience sound design. An overly complex soundscape can quickly become a user’s main annoyance. Keep it simple when creating sound for UX. Avoid cluttering the experience with too many overlapping or discordant sounds.

Don’t Overlook Accessibility

Don’t overlook how expansive your audience is, and the additional features they will need to enjoy your product. For instance, not all users will appreciate your auditory innovations. Ensure your sound design is accessible to the hard of hearing, low vision or neurodivergent users (More on accessibility design HERE). Sometimes creating different sound sets for these users is justified or consider using alternatives such as vibration or visual indicators to reduce cognitive load.

Don’t Forget To Test

As mentioned earlier, sound can behave unexpectedly across different devices and auditory conditions. What works in a quiet studio space might not be effective in a bustling cafe. Thus, rigorous testing is essential to validate the usability and effectiveness of sound elements in varying environments on different devices.

Testing is a key part of the quality control process because it will help you refine your UX design. Creating a versatile sound design strategy for your user experience requires the help of experienced auditory experts who can make precise but powerful adjustments to get it right.

For example, at CMoore Sound, our product sound design relies on factors such as branding, accessibility, and functionality. While it may seem complicated to balance these factors across UX design, working with audio experts ensures you can translate your brand into a quality user experience on medical devices, social apps, and more.

Implement UX Sound Design Today

Understanding range and context is pivotal. Textual elements are usually spoken words or ultra-clear audio tones, often in the mid-range, creating informative sounds. Often, sounds coexist with a visual animation, ensuring a multi-sensory cue that’s hard to miss.

A seamless, well-implemented sound design strategy can significantly enhance user engagement, leading to higher retention and conversion rates. You create a more memorable and connected experience, especially for brands with strong audio recognition signals by fostering a brand’s sonic identity.

Experiential marketing provides a direct, immersive way for brands to connect with their target audience. Elevating your experiential marketing strategy requires focusing on brand recognition and multisensory experiences. Let’s dig deeper into the role of audio in experiential marketing to set your strategy on the right path now.

Immersion for the Audience

Marketers are crafting campaigns that go beyond mere transaction, aiming to captivate the consumer’s senses, emotions, and intellect, with immersive brand experiences as the centerpiece. This marks a pivotal shift to a more holistic sensory approach, where every aspect of consumer interaction bears the brand’s indelible imprint.

For instance, VR is a common example of modern experiential marketing—it goes beyond being a TV ad and becomes a tactile experience. Audio grounds these experiences in an immersive environment, such as the sound effects that bring a virtual reality showcase to life. Likewise, the sounds of the products that each member of your target audience interacts with bring the brand to life.

The Sonic Impression

The role audio plays in experiential marketing is critical to making the right first impression. Each sound helps curate the experience’s ambience, which speaks to your brand’s overall tone.

Auditory experiences, in particular, can evoke powerful emotional responses. From the lilting whispers of luxury brands to the faster tempo’s and booming basslines that signal high-energy retail environments, sound carves identity and shapes memory.

Not only must you create the right sound cues, but you must also optimize the volume for an immersive but unobtrusive experience. Simply put, music and other audio in your experiential marketing strategy shouldn’t be obnoxiously loud. Focus on sounds that are commanding and present but aren’t loud enough to distract or annoy your potential customers.

The concept of a sonic identity is becoming as indispensable as a visual logo. Through meticulously crafted sounds, brands can assert their presence across diverse media landscapes, ensuring recognizability and fostering emotional connections with consumers. In experiential marketing, use your audio cues in tandem with carefully curated visuals to truly immerse your audience in the experience.

Letting the Brand Shine

Sound is deeply intertwined with memory, emotion, and cognition. In creating a soundscape for brands, it’s necessary to tune into the psychological underpinnings of sound. The right sound, at the right time, can subliminally nudge consumer behavior, casting impressions that last.

The “ding” of a text message, the hum of a bustling airport, or the clack of heels on marble floors—these sounds, unspoken icons of our daily existence, prime our brains for action. They set the scene, guide our focus, and influence the emotional color of the moment.

In a marketing context, this means sound is a navigator, able to steer the narrative surrounding a product or service. Create an experiential marketing plan that relies on auditory experiences that perfectly embody your brand’s values.

Taking your core values and transforming them into sound assets ensures that you can communicate with your audience without having to say anything. With the right audio, anyone using your products or watching your ads will easily understand your brand.

For example, at CMoore Sound, our experiential sound design services focus on creating a soundscape that matches your brand ethos accurately. Develop your experiential marketing strategy using the information above to start building an immersive experience that embodies your brand beautifully.