[Sigia-l] Organising content by sound

[Listera]

Matthew deStwolinski:

> Would you mind giving us an example or two of some task you may be
> performing with an app, how you set yourself up in anticipation of some
> state, and how a sonic cue then enables you to move on?

In Mac OS X, there's a powerful notion of (for lack of a better description)
just-in-time guides. In design apps like Interface Builder, OmniGraffle,
RealBasic, or Keynote, for example, as you move objects around the canvas
guides appear *automatically* momentarily as they align to various anchor
points/objects and then disappear just as automagically. This is a very
fluid and fast way of positioning objects and aligning them wrt multiple
references. Once you use them, you won't ever want to give them up.

Now, more than a decade ago and in the absence of just-in-time guide
technology, FreeHand had sonic cues. It would emit sounds as you moved
objects around and when they got closer to snappable
objects/guides/points/etc. With daily usage of FreeHand, I could align
objects (something you do a thousand times a day) without even looking at
the screen as I listen to sonic cues. One probably wouldn't appreciate the
full value of sonic cues like this, unless taken away.

Like I said, sonic cues are often subtle, but can be very useful aids.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba