Recommendations to Develop, Distribute and Market Sonification Apps

TL;DR

This study documents the development, distribution, and marketing of Tiltification, a public-facing sonification app that conveys phone tilt via psychoacoustic cues. By analyzing app-store statistics and online responses, the authors evaluate which strategic decisions most effectively drove adoption and visibility, drawing comparisons with a prior app (CURAT). The work provides actionable recommendations for future sonification apps, emphasizing accessibility, cross-platform deployment, broad language support, and a publicity strategy that leverages university press releases and scientific communities. The findings underscore the importance of product-focused, broadly accessible communication to broaden public engagement with sonification and inform practical deployment in non-commercial settings.

Abstract

After decades of research, sonification is still rarely adopted in consumer electronics, software and user interfaces. Outside the science and arts scenes the term sonification seems not well known to the public. As a means of science communication, and in order to make software developers, producers of consumer electronics and end users aware of sonification, we developed, distributed, and promoted Tiltification. This smartphone app utilizes sonification to inform users about the tilt angle of their phone, so that they can use it as a torpedo level. In this paper we report on our app development, distribution and promotion strategies and reflect on their success in making the app in particular, and sonification in general, better known to the public. Finally, we give recommendations on how to develop, distribute and market sonification apps. This article is dedicated to research institutions without commercial interests.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: Daily downloads of Tiltification from the Google Play Store. Within one day after the press release $10$ online magazines published articles about Tiltification, which led to $813$ and $1,229$ downloads on these days and $5,287$ during the following $4$ days. Posts in mailing lists had a visible effect, social media posts, the ICAD presentation and some online articles had no direct impact.
• Figure 2: Daily downloads of the CURAT sonification game. Many events directly caused a small but distinct download peak, like the posts in audio research mailing lists (ML), and the radio and magazine articles and press release that were dedicated to a broad audience. The conference presentation and articles for narrow target groups (like the medically-centered press release, the hospital magazine and the university's online magazine) did not produce peaks themselves.
• Figure 3: Daily downloads of Tiltification from the Apple App Store. The plot bears strong similarity to the time series from the Google Play Store.
• Figure 4: Monthly active Tiltification users on Android. After a short hype with over $10,000$ users, we observed a transition from $1,900$ users in early December to $1,600$ users in early January.
• Figure 5: Time series of install base, i.e., Android devices that had CURAT installed. The first wave was quite international, the second wave, initiated by the Tiltification press release, was dominated by German users.