CLIENT
Enterprise Alerting Platform
UX Sound Design
ROLE
On-Call Notification Sounds
Engineers who operate distributed systems are tethered to their phones. A single notification can mean a 3am wakeup, a spike in heart rate, and a sprint to the terminal. The sounds that carry those alerts matter more than most people realize.
We partnered with a leading enterprise alerting platform to rethink what on-call notifications should sound like and built a research-backed library designed with the responder's wellbeing in mind.
The Challenge
Alert fatigue is a real and documented problem. Poorly designed sounds increase cognitive load, heighten anxiety, and over time contribute to burnout.
Our goal wasn't just to make pleasant sounds.
Our goal was to make sounds that work: sounds that wake people up, cut through noise, blend into environments, and occasionally make engineers smile.
A Research-First Approach
We took an evidence-based approach, drawing on studies in auditory perception, aviation alarm design, fire safety research, and ecologically valid notification theory.
That research, combined with direct conversations with engineers, revealed four distinct responder profiles.
Each one became the foundation for a sound category.
Urgent
For engineers in loud, busy environments.
Research from aviation and medical alarm design shows that short, percussive bursts built around lower fundamental frequencies with harmonic content are far more detectable in noisy conditions than simply louder tones.
We translated that into rich, punchy sounds with subtle pitch movement — cuts through the noise without punishing your ears.
Everyday
For engineers who share space with family members or coworkers.
We drew on research into ecologically valid sounds. Alerts that blend naturally into familiar environments while remaining clearly recognizable to the intended listener. These sounds feel like part of the background to everyone else in the room.
Gentle
For the 3:00am page.
Decades of fire safety research consistently finds that lower-frequency tones around 520 Hz wake sleepers more reliably than high-pitched alarms. In some studies, up to ten times more effectively.
We combined that acoustic approach with warm melodic structures shown to support faster cognitive recovery after waking. The goal: get you up without adding to the stress.
Playful
For engineers who prefer a little levity on the night shift.
Research on voice-based alerts finds they're identified correctly at remarkably high rates and recognized faster than tonal alternatives which opened the door to something with personality.
These sounds trade urgency for humor, making on-call feel a little less heavy.
The Outcome
A curated notification library that treats sound as a human problem, not just a technical one. Four distinct categories. Dozens of options. One clear through-line: the person behind the pager deserves better than a jarring buzz in the dark.