Spatial audio in small display screen devices

Walker, A. and Brewster, S.A. (2000) Spatial audio in small display screen devices. Personal Technologies, 4(2), pp. 144-154. (doi: 10.1007/BF01324121)

Abstract

Our work addresses the problem of (visual) clutter in mobile device interfaces. The solution we propose involves the translation of technique-from the graphical to the audio domain-for expliting space in information representation. This article presents an illustrative example in the form of a spatialisedaudio progress bar. In usability tests, participants performed background monitoring tasks significantly more accurately using this spatialised audio (a compared with a conventional visual) progress bar. Moreover, their performance in a simultaneously running, visually demanding foreground task was significantly improved in the eye-free monitoring condition. These results have important implications for the design of multi-tasking interfaces for mobile devices.

• Item Type: Articles
• Keywords: 3D audio, Delay affordance, Interface design, Usability testing
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Brewster, Professor Stephen
• Authors: Walker, A., and Brewster, S.A.
• Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science; T Technology > T Technology (General)
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
• Journal Name: Personal Technologies
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• ISSN: 1617-4909
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2000 Springer
• First Published: First published in Personal Technologies 4(2):144-154
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher