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Spatial audio in small screen device displays

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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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computing Science, University of Gasgow, 7 Lilybank Gardens, G12 8QQ, Glasgow, Scotland

    Ashely Walker & Steven Brewster

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  1. Ashely Walker
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  2. Steven Brewster
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Correspondence to Ashely Walker.

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Walker, A., Brewster, S. Spatial audio in small screen device displays. Personal Technologies 4, 144–154 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01324121

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