Sound in vehicles often becomes noticeable only when something goes wrong. Most people can immediately recall an irritating warning tone, an intrusive navigation prompt, or repetitive notifications during a journey. These sounds tend to interrupt rather than accompany experience, appearing briefly to signal danger, demand attention, or communicate instructions before disappearing again. Much less attention is usually given to the wider role sound plays in shaping how journeys actually feel. Yet vehicles already communicate continuously through sound, although many of these interactions become so familiar that they disappear into the background of everyday travel. Indicators click rhythmically beside us, seatbelt reminders demand attention, parking systems announce approaching obstacles, and navigation systems guide movement through spoken instructions. A largely invisible conversation already exists between people and vehicles, though most of it remains unnoticed until something becomes irritating or disruptive.
As vehicles become increasingly intelligent and potentially autonomous, this relationship begins changing in important ways. Traditional vehicles rely heavily on direct control. Drivers steer, brake, accelerate, and make continual decisions throughout a journey. Future vehicles may shift some of these responsibilities towards automated systems, creating a rather different experience. Attention may move away from the road itself and towards work, conversation, entertainment, or rest. Questions therefore begin emerging around whether sound should continue acting primarily as interruption or whether it might instead become a quieter form of support that helps people feel informed, comfortable, and connected to the actions of a vehicle.
These questions formed the basis of an online guest lecture delivered by Dr Justyna Maculewicz, whose work explored user-centred approaches to sound design for future vehicles. Rather than beginning with technological possibilities alone, her work started with people and their experiences. The emphasis throughout the lecture repeatedly returned to an important principle: understanding users before designing sounds.
Research presented during the lecture involved interviews with drivers and passengers across a range of commuting contexts. Participants discussed their daily experiences, frustrations, routines, and emotional responses during travel. The purpose was not simply to determine whether participants liked particular sounds but to understand how people experienced travel itself and where sound might play meaningful roles within those experiences.
Findings suggested that travelling involves far more than moving physically from one place to another. A commute can become preparation for a working day, a brief period of quiet after a stressful afternoon, or one of the few moments available for concentration and reflection. Someone travelling home after a long day may seek quietness and reassurance, while another person beginning a working day may value engagement and awareness. A parent travelling with children may experience entirely different priorities from someone commuting alone. Expectations and needs therefore change continuously across situations.
One of the more interesting aspects of the work involved moving away from rigid user categories and towards behavioural patterns. Three broad behavioural tendencies emerged from the interviews. One group preferred control and active engagement with driving experiences. Another sought reassurance and clarity, valuing confidence in the behaviour of systems around them. A third group prioritised comfort and productivity, viewing travel time as an opportunity to focus on other activities.
Importantly, these were not treated as fixed personality types. Maculewicz emphasised that individuals could move between different behaviours depending on context, mood, fatigue, weather conditions, or travel purpose. Someone who normally enjoys driving may prefer a calmer and more supportive experience after a stressful day. Equally, a passenger travelling during unfamiliar conditions may suddenly seek additional reassurance and information. Behaviour therefore appeared dynamic rather than static.
This distinction had important consequences for sound design. Traditional systems often assume that one solution should work equally well for everyone. Yet if user needs change over time, sound design may also need to become adaptive rather than fixed.
For users seeking active engagement, richer sonic environments appeared more appropriate. Additional information and more expressive interactions could support a sense of control and awareness. Those seeking reassurance instead preferred clearer and calmer forms of communication that reduced uncertainty. Meanwhile users focused on work or productivity often preferred quieter interactions providing only essential information while avoiding unnecessary interruption. Rather than creating a single universal sound environment, the work explored whether future systems might adapt according to changing experiences and needs.
A broader design framework was then introduced that organised vehicle interaction into multiple layers. These included perception, intention, current actions, required responses, strategy, and emotional context. Emotional framing operated across these categories rather than existing separately, helping shape the overall experience rather than acting as an isolated feature.
What made this framework particularly interesting was that it treated sound as something larger than isolated alerts. Traditional warning systems often appear only during particular moments requiring immediate attention. In contrast, this approach considered how sound might support an ongoing relationship between users and vehicles. Instead of simply reacting to problems, sounds could help explain behaviour, communicate intentions, and create a sense of continuity throughout a journey.
Among these ideas, intention sounds emerged as one of the most distinctive aspects of the lecture. Conventional warning sounds typically communicate information after an event has occurred or immediately before danger appears. Intention sounds operated rather differently. Rather than announcing what had already happened, these sounds communicated what a vehicle was about to do.
Sounds associated with acceleration, braking, or turning were introduced slightly before physical movements occurred. Although this difference initially appears relatively small, it has interesting implications for perception. Human beings continuously anticipate actions and outcomes within everyday experience. When travelling in a vehicle driven by another person, passengers often prepare unconsciously for changes in movement based on visual information, driver behaviour, or expectations formed through experience. Autonomous systems may reduce some of these familiar cues.
Without anticipation, even small delays between expectation and movement can create discomfort. This issue becomes particularly important when people are no longer focused directly on driving tasks. Someone reading, working, or looking away from the road may have fewer signals available for predicting changes in movement.
Findings presented during the lecture suggested that intention sounds could help address this problem. Participants gradually became accustomed to these cues, often reporting that they stopped consciously noticing them over time. Yet despite becoming less consciously aware of the sounds, behavioural effects remained present. Participants reported greater comfort, improved trust, and reductions in motion sickness.
This aspect of the work suggests an interesting possibility. Effective sound design may sometimes involve creating sounds that gradually disappear from conscious awareness rather than continually demanding attention. Successful design may occasionally involve fading into the background, allowing people to feel supported without constantly being reminded of the system itself.
Trust formed another important theme running throughout the lecture. Autonomous systems raise practical questions concerning safety and reliability, though they also introduce psychological questions involving confidence and reassurance. People may intellectually understand that a system functions correctly while still feeling uncomfortable or uncertain.
Sound therefore becomes important not only for transmitting information but also for shaping emotional responses. Perception sounds and intention sounds appeared capable of supporting trust while remaining acceptable during longer periods of use. Rather than overwhelming users with constant warnings or large quantities of information, carefully designed sonic interactions helped establish a feeling that the system remained understandable and predictable.
Another particularly interesting aspect involved the methods used early within the design process itself. Maculewicz described vocalisation exercises in which participants and researchers used their own voices to explore sound concepts before detailed design work began. Instead of immediately creating polished digital sounds, people experimented using simple vocal expressions to communicate movement, intention, and emotional qualities.
Although these exercises initially appeared playful, they served an important purpose. They helped clarify what sounds were intended to communicate before investing significant effort into production and implementation. Questions surrounding function and meaning could therefore be explored before technical decisions became fixed.
Running throughout the lecture was a broader shift in thinking about the role of sound within vehicles. Traditional systems frequently focus on isolated moments of interruption and attention. Future sound interaction may instead become something quieter and more continuous, operating as an adaptive layer supporting comfort, anticipation, trust, and wellbeing throughout travel.
Vehicles may therefore communicate with us in increasingly subtle ways. Sound within future systems may gradually move away from functioning as collections of warnings and alerts towards becoming a quieter layer of interaction that helps people understand not only what a vehicle is doing, but also how they relate to it.