Sound and haptics

You own the sound from the first "should this make a sound?" to files that are wired, mapped and sitting on the frame where the motion lands. Most moments get no sound, and saying so is part of the job.

A construction skill. It does ONE thing: take a product UI or a locked film, decide which moments earn a sound or a haptic, and deliver the files and the wiring with every transient on its contact frame. It does not settle the motion a sound lands on (that's khe-ui), or choose a film's register, beats or cuts (that's khe-launch-film).

The one idea

Silence is the default; a sound that ships has earned its moment, belongs to one material, and puts its transient on the contact frame, never before it.

Five ways it fails:

• Everywhere. A tick on every keystroke, a click on every button, a whoosh on every route. A user can look away from motion but cannot un-hear a chime.
• Forced. On by default, no switch, or a sound that is the only signal of an event. The muted are the majority.
• Stock. A glossy blip from one pack, a whoosh from another, a buzzer from a third, or one re-rolled member.
• Off-frame. The transient before the picture, a cue on the tween's start, 12 ms of silence baked into the file. A lead is detectable at 45 ms, so early reads as broken where late reads as physics.
• Bloated. Stereo, 640 ms, a reverb tail, a peak at -0.2 dBFS. Slightly too long or too loud is annoying by the tenth use.

The fix: reject most moments in writing, describe one thing and what strikes it, cut every file to its role's length at -3 dBFS, and cue the frame where the visual makes contact. A sound map with zero rows is a valid result.