휴대용 디지털 전자제품의 사용성 향상을 위한 청각적 피드백의 고려

Design Considerations of Auditory Feedback for Enhancing The Usability of Portable Digital Electronic Products

Non-verbal sound feedback, called earcon, has been used for portable digital electronic products to give appropriate information for the selected function. This study evaluated usability based on user cognition time, error rate, and subjective satisfaction using 20 male and female subjects. The study compared five major user functions from a portable digital electronic product with currently available earcons and the same functions from the product with the new earcons (suggested by this study) which considered user cognitive characteristics, such as loudness, pitch, melody, and length. For subjective evaluation, the study assessed various earcons by subjective impression of sounds using the seven-point rating scales. Major statistical results indicated that the new earcons significantly reduced user error rates and generally improved user performance functions, such as 'play, off, stop, fast forward, and rewind.'