Navigating telephone-based interfaces with earcons

Brewster, S.A. (1997) Navigating telephone-based interfaces with earcons. In: 12th British Computer Society HCI Conference, Bristol, England, 12-15 August 1997, pp. 39-56. ISBN 3540761721

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Abstract

Non-speech audio messages called earcons can provide powerful navigation cues in menu hierarchies. However, previous research on earcons has not addressed the particular problems of menus in telephone-based interfaces (TBI's) such as: Does the lower quality of sound in TBI's lower recall rates, can users remember earcons over a period of time and what effect does training type have on recall. An experiment was conducted and results showed that sound quality did lower the recall of earcons. However, redisgn of the earcons overcame this problem with 73 % recalled correctly. Participants could still recall earcons at this level after a week had passed. Training type also affected recall. With 'personal training' participants recalled 73% of the earcons but with purely textual training results were significantly lower. These results show that earcons can provide excellent navigation cues for telephone-based interfaces

Item Type:Conference Proceedings
Keywords:earcons, telephone-based interfaces, auditory interfaces, non-speech audio, navigation
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Brewster, Professor Stephen
Authors: Brewster, S.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:3540761721
Copyright Holders:Copyright © 1997 Springer Verlag
First Published:First published in People and computers XII: Proceedings of HCI '97
Publisher Policy:Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher

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