Topic
Earcon
About: Earcon is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 62 publications have been published within this topic receiving 4606 citations.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
1 Jan 1994
TL;DR: The structured method for integrating sound into interfaces was shown to be effective when applied to existing interface widgets and Experimental results showed that sound could improve usability by increasing performance, reducing time to recover from errors and reducing workload.
Abstract: This thesis provides a framework for integrating non-speech sound into human-computer interfaces. Previously there was no structured way of doing this, it was done in an ad hoc manner by individual designers. This led to ineffective uses of sound. In order to add sounds to improve usability two questions must be answered: What sounds should be used and where is it best to use them? With these answers a structured method for adding sound can be created. An investigation of earcons as a means of presenting information in sound was undertaken. A series of detailed experiments showed that earcons were effective, especially if musical timbres were used. Parallel earcons were also investigated (where two earcons are played simultaneously) and an experiment showed that they could increase sound presentation rates. From these results guidelines were drawn up for designers to use when creating usable earcons. These formed the first half of the structured method for integrating sound into interfaces. An informal analysis technique was designed to investigate interactions to identify situations where hidden information existed and where non-speech sound could be used to overcome the associated problems. Interactions were considered in terms of events, status and modes to find hidden information. This information was then categorised in terms of the feedback needed to present it. Several examples of the use of the technique were presented. This technique formed the second half of the structured method. The structured method was evaluated by testing sonically-enhanced scrollbars, buttons and windows. Experimental results showed that sound could improve usability by increasing performance, reducing time to recover from errors and reducing workload. There was also no increased annoyance due to the sound. Thus the structured method for integrating sound into interfaces was shown to be effective when applied to existing interface widgets.
238 citations
1 Jan 1997
TL;DR: From the results some guidelines were drawn up for designers to use when creating earcons and it was formally shown that earcons are an effective method for communicating complex information in sound.
Abstract: A detailed experimental evaluation of earcons was carried out to see whether they are an effective means of communicating information in sound. An initial experiment showed that earcons were better than unstructured bursts of sound and that musical timbres were more effective than simple tones. Musicians were shown to be no better than non-musicians when using musical timbres. A second experiment was then carried out which improved upon some of the weaknesses of the pitches and rhythms used in Experiment 1 to give a significant improvement in recognition. From the results some guidelines were drawn up for designers to use when creating earcons. These experiments have formally shown that earcons are an effective method for communicating complex information in sound.
191 citations
Patent•
1 Sep 2004
TL;DR: In this paper, the earcons are used as user prompts in mobile communication devices with speech recognition capabilities, where each user prompt is for soliciting a corresponding spoken input from the user or informing the user about an action or state of the device.
Abstract: The apparatus and methods for using earcons as user prompts in mobile communication devices described herein are directed to implementing a mode of communication in these communication devices having speech recognition capabilities wherein spoken prompts are disabled and replaced with short identifiable sound prompts such as the earcons. In general, according to one aspect of the invention, a method for operating a communication device that includes speech recognition capabilities, comprises implementing on the device a user interface that employs a plurality of different user prompts, wherein each user prompt is for soliciting a corresponding spoken input from the user or informing the user about an action or state of the device; implementing on the device a plurality of different earcons, each earcon being mapped to a corresponding different one of the plurality of user prompts; and when any selected one of said plurality of user prompts is issued by the user interface on the device, generating the earcon that is mapped to the selected user prompt. Each prompt of the plurality of user prompts has a corresponding language representation and wherein generating the earcon for the selected user prompts includes generating the corresponding language representation through the user interface.
132 citations
1 Jan 1996
TL;DR: An experiment to discover if structured audio messages, earcons, could provide navigational cues in a menu hierarchy showed that earcons are a robust and extensible method of communicating hierarchy information in sound.
Abstract: We describe an experiment to discover if structured audio messages, earcons, could provide navigational cues in a menu hierarchy. A hierarchy of 27 nodes and four levels was created with sounds for each node. Participants had to identify their location in the hierarchy by listening to an earcon. Results showed that participants could identify their location with over 80% accuracy, indicating that earcons are a powerful method of communicating hierarchy information. Participants were also tested to see if they could identify where previously unheard earcons would fit in the hierarchy. The results showed that they could do this with over 90% accuracy. These results show that earcons are a robust and extensible method of communicating hierarchy information in sound.
95 citations
4 Apr 2009
TL;DR: Two types of audio (auditory icons and earcons) are evaluated as mobile service notifications, by comparing them on 4 measures: intuitiveness, learnability, memorability and user preference, which indicated that auditory icons performed significantly better in all measures.
Abstract: With an ever increasing number of mobile services, meaningful audio notifications could effectively inform users of the incoming services while minimising undesired and intrusive interruptions. Therefore, careful design of mobile service notification is needed. In this paper we evaluate two types of audio (auditory icons and earcons) as mobile service notifications, by comparing them on 4 measures: intuitiveness, learnability, memorability and user preference. A 4-stage longitudinal evaluation involving two lab experiments, a field study and a web-based experiment indicated that auditory icons performed significantly better in all measures. Implications for mobile audio notification design are presented.
90 citations
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2 |
| 2018 | 6 |
| 2016 | 1 |
| 2015 | 1 |
| 2014 | 2 |