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.
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© 1996 Springer-Verlag London
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Brewster, S., Raty, VP., Kortekangas, A. (1996). Earcons as a Method of Providing Navigational Cues in a Menu Hierarchy. In: Sasse, M.A., Cunningham, R.J., Winder, R.L. (eds) People and Computers XI. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3588-3_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3588-3_12
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-76069-6
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