---
title: "Sound theme results\n    | Ubuntu"
description: First of all, thank you all for your feedback in both the blog post and,
  most importantly, the survey. Over 2000 surveys were completed, which is amazing.
  We are really quite overwhelmed with the encouraging feedback received at this stage,
  so I thought it worth sharing some of the highlights.  Quotes It almost spells out  […]
url: https://ubuntu.com/blog/sound-theme-results?format=md
keywords: index, follow
---

1. [Blog](https://ubuntu.com/blog)
2. Article

---

[Canonical](https://ubuntu.com/blog/author/canonical "More about Canonical")

20 February 2012

# Sound theme results

[Design](https://ubuntu.com/blog/tag/design)
[sound](https://ubuntu.com/blog/tag/sound)
[submissions](https://ubuntu.com/blog/tag/submissions)

---

Share the article

First of all, thank you all for your feedback in both the blog post and, most importantly, the survey. Over 2000 surveys were completed, which is amazing.

We are really quite overwhelmed with the encouraging feedback received at this stage, so I thought it worth sharing some of the highlights.

## Quotes

> It almost spells out U-bun-tu.
>
> It’s unique and modern, but has a feeling of community within it.
>
> Its pleasant that it reflects the working of OS, smoother more user friendly
>
> An idea of a future, dynamism and creativity
>
> It has a “rich” quality that has generally been part of the Ubuntu soundscape.
>
> It is unobtrusive and feels like it fits the old “humanity” as well as the new “light” theme.
>
> It’s distinctive, playful, lively and yet restrained, soothing and modest.

This is great. What is even better is the quantity of constructive criticism that means we can start to iterate further samples and get closer to *the* sound.

## The vote

It was very close, but the winner was sound number one. For reference, this chart shows the closeness of the averages from the scaled questions in the survey.

Remember however there were open ended questions too, so with this result and the positive feedback from the free form text questions, **[sound one](http://design.canonical.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Blog-Sound-1.ogg)** became a clear winner.

As the results were close (as you can see particularly between numbers one and two) we will feed that back to our chosen sound designer to influence their next development.

> Thanks for all your feedback!

### For the next stage we intend to

* make it more human, less synthesised
* increase the warmth of tone
* tighten the end note
* lower the pitch
* land the sound for 12.04!

[Get in touch

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