How The Facebook Ping Notification Noise Was Designed & Developed

I’m one of the few people I know who actually likes the Facebook ping notification sound. Sure, it’s a distraction I don’t need during my busy day, but the sound itself is nice. Have you ever stopped to really listen to it? It’s almost smooth and soothing. There’s no question that it’s a step up from most of the notification sounds I hear on different services. As it turns out, just like with everything else at Facebook, a lot of thought and consideration went into the development of that Facebook ping sound.

There has never been much talk about how that Facebook ping was developed until now. Just yesterday The Atlantic posted an article about it that I found to be very interesting. Someone asked a question on Quora inquiring about that very special sound. To her surprise, former Facebook employee and current Pinterest employee Everett Katigbak responded with an answer. Everett is the primary person responsible for designing and developing that Facebook ping sound.

You can click over on the link to The Atlantic above to get the super detailed explanation, but I’ll give you the gist of it here. First of all, it consists of four notes (F, A, C & E). They apparently didn’t plan the fact that those letters spell FACE. That chord is F Major 7. Everett explained, “it’s a jazz chord…less formal, improvisational, and has a positive feel to it.” Amongst other things, he found inspiration in the sound of an old-school phone ringing when he designed the Facebook ping sound.

He also went on to say that “the audio suite was designed to be a modular system.” In other words, it’s all kinds of related sounds that can be put together and pulled apart to make new sounds for different applications. Who would ever guess so much thought and consideration went into that pleasant little Facebook ping sound we hear when we have Facebook open on our computers.