Earcons as a method of providing navigational cues in a menu hierarchy

Brewster, S.A. , Raty, V.-P. and Kortekangas, A. (1996) Earcons as a method of providing navigational cues in a menu hierarchy. In: 11th British Computer Society HCI Conference, London, England, 20-23 August 1996, pp. 167-183. ISBN 3540760695

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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 earconsare a robust and extensible method of communicating hierarchy information in sound.

Item Type:Conference Proceedings
Keywords:Earcons, auditory interfaces, non-speech audio, navigation, menus, phone-based interaction
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Brewster, Professor Stephen
Authors: Brewster, S.A., Raty, V.-P., and Kortekangas, A.
Subjects:Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science
Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Computer software
College/School:College of Science and Engineering > School of Computing Science
Publisher:Springer Verlag
ISBN:3540760695
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 1996 Springer Verlag
First Published:First published in People and Computers XI: Proceedings of HCI '96
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

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