Of the eleven feedback signals selected for specific functions four were communications based and seven were musical. None of the real world auditory signals were acceptable. Auditory Feedback, Auditory Icons, Earcons, Sound. It has been speculated that users may perceive the real world sounds as annoying and trite. Abstract sounds that may provide a successful alternative include communications and musical sounds.
Communications oriented sounds are musical tones traditionally associated with electronic tasks.
Musically oriented sounds are abstract signals and there is generally no association between musical sounds and a given task or function. A professional musician designed both communications and musical feedback signals. Real world signals were selected from sound libraries. Experiment II evaluated the sounds based on subjective ratings. The experiment was designed to find any natural mapping of the sounds to the functions.