How important to you are seeing and hearing? How do these core senses help you understand and make meaning while using technology?

Can you imagine your computing experience being better aligned with your expectations because of how your device looks and sounds?

Inbox Color & Sound

I manage six email accounts across my various identities and gigs. I appreciate notification banners for a preview of messages I’m tempted to read. However, a sound effect indicating which account is receiving a message helps me decide instantly whether to look at the banner at all—without breaking focus from the current task.

I also like to set the background of listed messages to a color that distinguishes messages in one account from those in another. Both of these actions are easy to apply in Mail using a rule, as shown above.

Besides the sound effects and ringtones that come with our devices, there’s no shortage of places to download more, create them from our music libraries, etc. But that’s a tutorial for another day.

User Interface Sound Effects

Various applications and services we use on our devices offer the ability to customize the sound played for actions within them. Messages, Phone, FaceTime, and others enable us to choose the alert sound or ringtone played when we receive a message or an incoming call.

We can even choose a different sound for activities associated with specific contacts. As a Star Trek fan, you can see I’ve customized my primary iPhone behaviors with a bunch of related sound effects.

Choosing unique sounds ensures I know a given engagement involved my device and I can tell what action occurred. I encourage app developers to create their own unique sounds whenever possible so the default notification sound isn’t overused and indistinguishable.

Colorful Events & Tasks

Color is also a distinguishing factor in how we categorize events on the calendar and tasks on our to-do lists. Many of my clients have adapted their paper calendars of old—using different color pens—to how they organize their digital calendars.

As you can see from my calendar list, I’ve assigned each category of events a different color. This way, I can distinguish the types of activities scheduled.

Do I have enough work generating income and energizing me during my bicycle transport? Are there enough personal and social engagements to entertain and rejuvenate me? Viewing my calendar enables me to try to live a balanced life.

If your vision and/or hearing is impaired, I encourage you to peruse these sections of Accessibility settings on your Mac, iPhone, or iPad, with plentiful options to make things easier to see and interpret.

And if you want help using color or sound to enhance your computing experience, or need a hand to hold as you experiment with another change, give me a call.