Why does everything beep?
July 21, 2023 6:05 AM Subscribe
Elevators beep when you pass each floor. Microwaves beep when you press each button. Doors beep when they open. Why is this desirable or necessary, and why does it have to be such a high pitched, unpleasant sound?
It is desirable because it is aural feedback that things are working. For some people this is vital to decrease their frustration working with otherwise opaque machines. Haptic feedback and aural feedback are taken for granted a lot. A machine that feels good to use often has an intentional and well thought out feedback system.
A lot of accessibility guidelines also require or strongly recommend aural feedback to assist people with poor or absent vision.
The sounds are often unpleasant or high pitched because they need to pierce through the ambient sounds of the environment to be effective.
With many things, there are good, thoughful designs and there are poor designs. You remember the bad ones because they are annoying, maybe even jarring. The good designs don't even register and are quickly forgotten.
posted by cmm at 6:25 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
A lot of accessibility guidelines also require or strongly recommend aural feedback to assist people with poor or absent vision.
The sounds are often unpleasant or high pitched because they need to pierce through the ambient sounds of the environment to be effective.
With many things, there are good, thoughful designs and there are poor designs. You remember the bad ones because they are annoying, maybe even jarring. The good designs don't even register and are quickly forgotten.
posted by cmm at 6:25 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]
Mod note: Thread undeleted after talking about it with a user and other moderators. Apologies, OP!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:48 AM on July 22, 2023
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:48 AM on July 22, 2023
One reason is bad sound design. It's the same reason so many microwaves are ugly and why clock radios have piercing bright blue LEDs on them. The folks who build them don't care. The canonical beep from a small appliance has been the same for 30+ years, I assume it's something easy to produce with a simple analog circuit and a very small speaker / emitter. Why change it? (Because it's awful, that's why).
There's been a trend to fancier sound design in appliances. LG has been doing this for years, here's one example; still unpleasant timbre, but at least a melody. And here's an example Zojirushi rice cooker song. My brand new rice cooker lets me choose between the song, a few simple beeps, and blessed silence.
I suspect with doors and those god-awful vehicle backup sounds there's a safety standard. I don't know why it's a high pitched sound that is hard to directionally locate and carries a long distance, you'd think something more local would work better.
posted by Nelson at 8:12 AM on July 22, 2023
There's been a trend to fancier sound design in appliances. LG has been doing this for years, here's one example; still unpleasant timbre, but at least a melody. And here's an example Zojirushi rice cooker song. My brand new rice cooker lets me choose between the song, a few simple beeps, and blessed silence.
I suspect with doors and those god-awful vehicle backup sounds there's a safety standard. I don't know why it's a high pitched sound that is hard to directionally locate and carries a long distance, you'd think something more local would work better.
posted by Nelson at 8:12 AM on July 22, 2023
Honestly, I think the main reason is that a piezo buzzer only costs a few cents in bulk. That's by far the cheapest way to add audio output to a product, and literally the only sound it can produce is a high pitched beep. As soon as you want to make any other type of noise, it's going to add at least ten times as much to the bill of materials cost. So in pretty much any situation where a beep might suffice, in practice you're gonna get a beep.
posted by automatronic at 9:31 AM on July 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by automatronic at 9:31 AM on July 22, 2023 [1 favorite]
In the case specifically of elevators, the bells mean things and they're required by the ADA (though some places skirt those rules). here's a Technology Connections video about that. (that one's old, so it's short!)
posted by mrg at 2:17 PM on July 22, 2023
posted by mrg at 2:17 PM on July 22, 2023
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posted by kingdead at 6:11 AM on July 21, 2023 [3 favorites]