Google Play Books: The Sonic Director
Concept Design – Mockup
The Story is Only Complete When Your Imagination is Heard.
While everyone reads the same book, no two imaginations sound alike.
The Sonic Director listens to your inner voice and paints a soundscape that is uniquely yours — giving readers with visual impairments the creative agency to direct their own worlds.
When Sound Becomes Sight
If a hundred blind readers imagined Hogwarts, there would be a hundred different versions — each distinct, personal, and alive. This project began with that thought: what if sound could make imagination visible?
For many readers with visual impairments, audiobooks are their main gateway to literature. But while they open doors, they also quietly limit expression. A single narrator’s tone defines emotion. A fixed pacing decides what feels important. The listener can’t stop to savor a moment or speed up through dull parts. In essence, the creative control that reading naturally gives is lost.
According to the World Health Organization, over 2.2 billion people live with some form of vision impairment. That’s not just a statistic — it’s a massive audience for whom imagination has always been internal, invisible, and unhearable.
This project asks:
what if sound could become the brush that paints their imagination — not someone else’s?
Insight
The true magic of reading isn’t in seeing the words, but in shaping the world they describe. So instead of trying to make audiobooks more like reading, I explored the opposite:
What if listening could become an act of authorship?
This insight builds on a broader human trend. A McKinsey & Company study found that 71% of consumers expect personalization, and 76% feel frustrated when they don’t get it. But personalization in inclusive design is not about luxury — it’s about agency. Giving users the tools to shape their own experience isn’t just accessibility; it’s creative empowerment.
Solution: The Sonic Palette
The Sonic Director transforms audiobooks from a one-way broadcast into a collaborative act of imagination — where the listener becomes the director.
Key Features
🎙 Personalized Narration
Instead of a fixed narrator, the AI learns from each user’s voice and emotional preference.
In a short setup, users can say what kind of tone they like — soft or energetic, male or female, nostalgic or modern — and the AI blends those preferences into a voice that feels like a familiar companion.
It’s no longer someone else reading to you — it’s a voice that feels yours.
🎧 Generative Sound Design
Here, the listener literally “paints with sound.”
When a user opens the book, the AI presents short auditory choices —
“Here are two doors: one creaks slowly, one groans like an old castle. Which feels more like your story?”
Each answer teaches the system their sonic taste — sharp or soft, minimal or rich, cinematic or intimate.
From this, the AI generates a custom Sonic Palette that colors the entire book:
the rustle of trees, the flutter of pages, the echo of footsteps in their personal tone.
Users can also speak freely:
“Create the sound of a small bird trapped behind a window.”
The AI then offers a few synthesized variations, allowing the listener to choose the one that feels right.
Every choice becomes part of a growing personal library — their auditory fingerprint.
So when a hundred users listen to Harry Potter, a hundred completely different Hogwarts emerge — each built by its reader’s imagination.
⏱ Adaptive Narrative Pacing
Traditional audiobooks only let you set a fixed playback speed.
But The Sonic Director adds emotional pacing.
It learns that you might like thrillers fast but want romance slow and lingering.
While listening, you can simply say,
“Hey Google, slow down here,”
and the narration intuitively eases, giving time for reflection.
It’s not just playback — it’s emotional timing.
🌍 Community Collaboration
Every listener can share their Sonic Palette as a “sound skin” for others to experience.
Someone might upload “My Magical Hogwarts,” while another shares “Cozy Autumn Library.”
Listeners can explore each other’s imaginations — not to compare, but to feel how different minds sound.
This transforms the act of reading into a social, creative exchange.
Why SoundCloud?
To make this work, the AI needs a deep, human archive of sound — not sterile stock effects.
SoundCloud, with its vast library of user-created audio, is the ideal collaborator.
The AI learns from real human creativity — music, ambience, voice, noise — to generate its own authentic soundscapes.
And in return, every AI-generated piece can be shared back to SoundCloud, expanding the community’s creative pool.
It’s not just a partnership — it’s a feedback loop of imagination between human and machine.
Scenario: Directing Hogwarts Through Sound
Imagine Alex, a young blind reader opening Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone on Google Play Books.
When the app greets him —
“Welcome, Sonic Director. Let’s create your personal soundscape for Hogwarts.”
— the experience begins.
Alex chooses a narrator: a warm alto voice with an empathetic tone.
Next, he picks between two train sounds: one cinematic and grand, one subtle and airy.
He picks the latter — “It sounds more like magic quietly beginning.”
With each small decision, the AI learns.
As Alex listens, the world unfolds in his rhythm.
In the Great Hall, the ambient chatter matches the warmth he prefers.
In the Forbidden Corridor, the AI slows the pace as tension builds.
And when he says, “Hey Google, slow down here,”
the narration lingers — giving space for his imagination to breathe.
When the story ends, Alex saves his world as “My Magical Hogwarts.”
Other users remix it, layering their own interpretations — from eerie to whimsical — and share them back.
No single version is “correct.”
Each is a proof that storytelling can be both personal and shared, individual and communal.
Impact
The Sonic Director redefines what “accessible” means.
It’s not just about removing barriers — it’s about giving ownership back to imagination.
For readers with visual impairments, it transforms passive listening into authorship.
For everyone, it reframes accessibility as a space of creative abundance, not limitation.
The global audiobook market, valued at $5.3B in 2023, is growing 26% annually (Grand View Research).
This project sits at the intersection of that growth and inclusion — where AI doesn’t replace creativity, but amplifies it.
If AI can compose music, why not help people compose imagination itself?
With The Sonic Director, every story sounds like you.
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Speculative UX Concept by Jin Kim
Visual mockups generated with Gemini & ChatGPT (for concept purposes only)
