Research On Sonically-enhanced Mobile User Interfaces

The miniaturization of mobile devices makes it to be carried easily. Users have to distract their visual attention to the small screen of devices and the mobile environment. These have some significant impact on the usability of mobile user interfaces. It is the potential advantages that auditory interaction does not need to use the screen. So we can enhance the mobile user interface by sounds. The additional auditory feedback channel is provided. It can use multi-channel to increase the bandwidth of information transmited. This provides the possibility to improve the usability of mobile user interface.So far the research on enhancing the mobile user interface by sounds is not enough. The complete and systematic theoretical systems and accepted guidelines have not been formed yet. The author uses the basic principles of auditory scene analysis to guide the sound design to enhance the mobile user interface. The design process for sonically-enhanced mobile user interfaces is proposed. At the same time the guide principle for sound design in the design process of sonically-enhanced mobile user interfaces is presented.The relationships of the sound components in auditory scene are analyzed. The formal description methods of auditory scene are proposed and the corresponding design methods are given. The author also presents the design ideas and software architecture of visual design tools to create auditory scene. In the design of sound components, the sound presentation has two patterns:one is fast presentation, other is interactive presentation. The author presents the methods of the design and implementation of two presentation patterns.Base on the design process and guide principle of sonically-enhanced mobile user interfaces and the formal description methods and design methods of auditory scene, a sonically-enhanced menu on mobile devices was designed. A visual-only menu on mobile devices was also designed. The prototypes of the two menus were implemented. The usability evaluation method of sonically-enhanced mobile menu is proposed. The sonically enhanced menu was compared to the visual-only menu in a formal experiment in order to determine whether it can improve the usability of menu.During the experiment each participant held the mobile device and used the two menu interfaces while walking. The result shows that there is a significant reduction in task completion time, subjective workload and mental demand by using the sonically enhanced menu. This experiment finds that the sonically-enhanced menu can improve the usability of visual menus on mobile terminals. This study indicates that using effectively the design process and guide principle of sonically-enhanced mobile user interfaces and the formal description methods and design methods of auditory scene can guide the design of sonically enhanced mobile user interfaces.