Thomas Geraghty

Limerick Freesound was the title of my Final Year Project which involved the creation of an audio browsing interface  using  Adobe Flash and Actionscript 3.0. The application allowed users to upload audio clips which they had recorded and  overlay them on a map. They could then browse multiple sound clips at once using an “aura”.

The project was based on the idea that auditory interfaces that are present in todays technology are flawed.  That the way in which these interfaces provide us with information is not done in such a way as to augment human ability. While visibility and affordance are seen as being the important aspects in design there is much less discussion of audibility. Currently there are major issues in the way in which multimedia PC’s work with sound. In particular, the way in which we browse audio does not take advantage of the ability of the human ear to deal with multiple audio streams simultaneously. The goal of this project was to create a soundscape of Limerick City, which would offer users the opportunity to experience Limerick City in a new and very different way. It attempted to take advantage of human auditory ability through the implementation of sonic browsing in order to enhance and quicken the audio browsing experience.