Design Approaches to Alert Sounds for Interactions in Shops

Sammanfattning: Shoplifting is a serious issue that causes loss to retail owners. However, the loss can be avoided by adding preventative measures to deter shoplifters from committing the crime. Surveillance [2] and a store's design and layout [3] are considered significant factors that could deter them. Considering that background music is a part of a store's design, this research combined surveillance and a store's design to discourage shoplifters by creating changes to the background music that could make the shoplifters feel observed. Ultimately, this research asked these questions: 1) If a change in background music could make the visitor feel observed, what are the possible design strategies? and 2) which design is preferable? In this research, eight participants watched a first-person view of a shopper going around the shop and lifting a clothing article. The participants were asked to create a sound alert that matched the lifting action, mixed with three different background music tracks. Afterwards, they were asked to hand in the documentation of their design. Apart from that, they were asked to fill in a quantitative survey evaluating all the designs (including other participants' designs) and describe the design with three keywords. This research discovered that there were three main approaches in designing the sound alert, and there were certain preferences of a design approach dependent on the type of background music. In other words, there is a correlation between the type of background music and the preferred design approach. This work also discussed its limitations and presented opportunities for future research.