displayless interaction af lars bo larsen, aau

Displayless Interac/on Lars Bo Larsen

Mai Baunstrup, Søren Staal Jensen Infinit Temadag, AAU 20 juni 2013

Outline

•  Introduc/on of the Displayless Interac/on (DI) project

•  Presenta/on of AAU contribu/on: –  “Using sound content to direct user’s aOen/on” –  Experiments –  (preliminary) Results

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Display-less Interaction "

Outline of the Display-Less Interaction Project"–  To investigate interaction design for devices without

displays"–  Partners: Bang & Olufsen, Radiometer, AAU"–  Infinit “mini project”, running January 1 – June 30

2013"–  Close integration with PDP thesis students

(Engineering Psychology)"

"

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Display-less Interaction "

Our Focus"–  Using the auditory modality "–  To investigate if designed sounds can guide the

user’s attention onto certain areas of a user interface"–  To achieve this with sounds that are intuitive, which

do not have to be learned (earcons) or to be based on metaphors or cultural references (auditory icons)"

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Background"

•  Pratt (1930) found that the pitch of tones were related to their perceived positions"

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Background"

•  Walker and Ehrenstein (2000) tested 12 sounds that either increased or decreased in pitch"

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•  Results: Test-persons matched an increase and the decrease in pitch with ”high” and ”low”, at a 96% accuracy level"

"

Theories"

•  R. Walker (1987) ”The effects of culture, environment, age, and musical training on choices of visual metaphors for sound”"

•  828 test-subjects were tested to see how they matched acoustic features (frequency, waveform, amplitude, and duration) to visual metaphors on a response sheet. "

"•  Left-Right was generally matched with the duration of a

sound"7

Our Experiment"

Inspired by this, we decided to design a number of sounds with the goal of directing the user’s attention in a particular direction on a plain surface.""Inspired by the fact that earcons, designed as musical sounds are considered more attractive to listen to than other types, we chose a format of short piano sounds or tunes.""12 sounds were designed with the help of a musician:"–  2 pitch change sounds (1 increasing, 1 decreasing)"–  2 high / medium high pitch tones"–  2 low / medium low tones"–  2 sounds with increasing/decreasing beat"–  4 hybrid sounds (with beat and pitch change)"

•  Duration is 1.1-1.2 seconds"•  Tones are roughly within one octave"

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Our speaker device consists of 16 individual speakers (built by B&O) set in a frame The speakers are connected in 4 groups with 4 speakers in each corner This allows to define 5 channels: Le^, Right, Up, Down and All In the experiment, the speakers are hidden to the test person

Experimental design"

We designed two experiments:"

1.  Half the sounds are played by all speakers, (ie the sound is emitted uniformly from the surface of the device). The other half were played in either Right, Left, Up, Down sections as a control condition"–  30 test persons each listened to 192 sounds"

2.  All sounds are played by all speakers"–  16 test persons each listened to 96 sounds"

•  Only results from experiment 2 is reported here."

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Experiment setup"

•  The test person used a laser pointer to indicate where she experienced the sound "

•  The facilitater visually determined the position in a 4x4 grid"

•  The playback and recording of positions were controlled by a matlab program"

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Experiment 1"

•  Data was obtained via a matlab program, where the test-persons response was recorded via a push on a button, in accordance to a 4x4 grid"

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Experiment 1 Results"

•  30 test-persons participated"•  The general results are that the acoustics

were dominant in accordance to how the users gave their response"

•  The sounds only had an influence within these areas. "

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The decrease in pitch sound"

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One of the diagonal ”up” hybrid sounds"

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•  Notable answers from the questionnaires "

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•  Other interesting data"

Feedback from an explorative question What many test-persons mentioned "

"

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Results:"

Experiment 1:"–  showed that the acoustics was the dominant factor – ie when

sounds are played from different positions, users will hear this and it overrides the contents"

–  Analysis of interdependencies, etc are ongoing."

Experiment 2:"–  The purpose of Experiment 2 is to see what happens when the

factor of acoustics is eliminated"–  Preliminary results show clear effects in some cases and not so

clear in others, analysis is still ongoing"

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Experiment 2 results"Pitch and beat change"

"

""" Decrease " "Increase"

"

" Decrease "Increase"

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Pitch

Beat"

Experiment 2 results"

•  Static Pitch"

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High Medium high

Medium Low

Low


•  Hybrid Sounds"

Pitch decrease + beat up Pitch decrease + beat down"

"Pitch increase + speed up Pitch increase + beat down"

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•  Answers from the questionnaires regarding whether the sounds could guide the test-persons up or down"

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•  Answers from the questionnaires regarding whether the sounds could guide the test-persons left, right or into a corner"

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Statistical tests (Chi-Square)"

Increase in pitch (”up sound”)"" " " Yes, significant Decrease in pitch (”down sound”)"" "

Yes, significant

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High static pitch"" " """" " " " " " " " " " "Yes, significant

Medium high static pitch""

•  Yes, significant

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Increase in beat (”right sound”)""" "

" Not significant Decrease in beat (”left sound”)"

"

Not significant

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Medium low static pitch"" " Low static pitch"

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Summary"

•  Experiment 2 showed that the pitch level and changes were the dominant factor"

•  The pitch up and down sounds worked as expected"•  The static pitch worked for the high tones, but only partly

for low"•  The beat change – ie left and right sounds did not work"•  The diagonal and right-left sounds did not work as

intended"•  The diagonal and right-left sounds worked as up and

down sounds, in accordance to their pitch change"

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Application"

So, how do we apply this result for displayless Interaction?"

–  Our goal was to show that by utilising specific designed sound patterns, a sound source location can be simulated under certain circumstances, without any added mental load on the user"

–  This has implications for displayless devices, where e.g. a blinking LED can be replaced by a “down” sound to direct the users attention downwards"

–  Leading to better interaction (probably) better aesthetics and cheaper manufacturing costs"

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Conclusions

A first step towards a design guide for “simulated 3D” sounds have been taken •  Preliminary results show some clear indica/ons for up-‐down,

however le^-‐right s/ll remains unsolved •  There are interdependencies when the physical sound source

can be located •  We have deliberately avoided metaphorical sounds and

chosen very generic paOerns to leave designers as much freedom as possible

•  Sta/s/cal analysis is s/ll ongoing •  Results are applicable and will reduce manufacturing costs

and/or increase usability

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displayless interaction af lars bo larsen, aau

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