Browsing by Author "McGregor, Scott"

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    SoundShade - A creative tool designed to help users reduce the negative effects of unwanted sound in their working environment.
    (2021) McGregor, Scott; Ikonen, Antti; media; Taiteiden ja suunnittelun korkeakoulu; School of Arts, Design and Architecture; Ikonen, Antti
    Modern day working environments see many people’s work and study places being transformed into more cost efficient open-plan layouts. With this reduce in cost comes a reduction in privacy - specifically sound privacy, and as a result a degradation in working performance. In this paper we will look at how noise, later defined in this paper as ‘unwanted sound’, can negatively affect a person's psychological and physiological state and then offer a solution to help combat these negative effects via the use of a mobile application. The SoundShade app contains various sounds of nature along with other non-intrusive sounds that were designed in accordance with background research efforts, outlined in this paper, in an attempt to offer a person the ability to create their own preferable sound environment, hopefully resulting in an increase in their working performance and focus, with an increased ability to recover from stressors. The paper will look deeply into the design process of the SoundShade app, the sounds found within, and how certain problematic auditory characteristics were avoided.