Historically, sound design and technology have had a symbiotic relationship predicated on communication and an ability to convey information: Think of the dings as an elevator reaches its destination, or a phone ringing to alert people to a call. That relationship has produced more sophisticated, emotionally rich results as technology has progressed, from the deconstructed synth sounds dotting the stereo soundscape of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now and the Brian Eno-composed tranquil start-up tones for Windows 95 to the instantly recognizable, percolating iPhone ringtone.

Still, defining good sound design can be an elusive endeavor. Because the aim is often to create an immersive, unobtrusive experience, the measures of success include hard-to-quantify things such as the emotions provoked. “Nothing’s tangible with any of this,” agrees Adam Pleiman, president and creative director of Sound Images, a Cincinnati-based sound branding and music agency. “It’s either heard, or it’s a feeling or emotion that you’re trying to solidify through the use of sound, or make something real or not real. And if the job’s well done it’s absolutely thankless, because people are like, ‘Well, that was cool,’ and they don’t think of it.”

Web-based sound design is even more of a slippery field. Best case, this audio is integrated into the experience so well that it doesn’t even register with people’s consciousness. At worst, sounds are intrusive and unexpected, an unpleasant experience that jars the senses. “Websites should ask permission from the user before taking over their speakers,” says Mitch Wells, creator of Websynths.com, a browser-based synthesizer with robust capabilities, as he points out how web-based sound design is distinct from other sound design fields. “Everything most websites do should be able to work well without sound, with the sound simply adding to the experience. Video games and films, on the other hand, can assume the user can hear them, so they can make sound more pivotal to the storytelling.”

Still, web-based sound design is an emerging discipline informed by both rigorous research and gleeful bouts of experimentation. As a result, it’s somewhat of an amorphous field, one shaped not only by technological advances but also a combination of user creativity and cultural trends. Online addicts might rarely think much about how the sounds they hear were created, or what purpose they serve, but there are plenty of scholars, developers, designers and musicians giving serious thought to the transformative power of web-based sound design.