PinPoint Performance Solutions Blog (Legacy Content)

Here's a very interesting post recently made on UXmatters about Audio and the User Experience. Appealing to as many of the senses as possible is crucial in creating a good user experience and a quality user interface. Still, it is important to consider the context or environment in which people will be using your application be it software, website or web application. One person commented that most folks keep the volume low or turned off completely in office settings in order to avoid embarrassment or annoying their co-workers.

If a task is critical and uses audio cues to help facilitate action, it might be a good idea to also show visual cues as well to compensate for self-imposed limitation users might make. Nevertheless, the post linked above is very informative. Enjoy!