• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
• /
• v.13 no.1
• /
• pp.81-89
• /
• 2011

It is presumable that properly designed earcons given simultaneously with visual information could enhance the situation awareness of operators when they are involving in highly complicate process control activities. In this study, population stereotypes of earcons with respect to process control information were identified using 60 Korean subjects. To do this, 11 most distinctive earcons were selected from various earcons having different pitch, rhythm, and timbre. Associations between the selected earcons and 40 pairs of adjectives used to describe the state of control in process were gathered from 37 subjects using a semantic differential method. Based on the results from multivariate analyses, the 40 pairs of adjectives were aggregated into three distinctive semantic dimensions. The emotional maps of the 11 earcons matched with the semantic dimensions were presented in this study. On the basis of these results, a general guideline was suggested for designing earcons to deliver process control information.

• Journal of the Ergonomics Society of Korea
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.51-60
• /
• 2000

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.'

• International Journal of Contents
• /
• v.9 no.3
• /
• pp.29-34
• /
• 2013

This study attempted to compare usability of auditory interfaces, which is a comprehensive concept that includes safety, utility, effectiveness, and efficiency, in personal computing environments: verbal messages (speech sounds), earcons (musical sounds), and auditory icons (natural sounds). This study hypothesized that verbal messages would offer higher usability than earcons and auditory icons, since the verbal messages are easy to interpret and understand based on semiotic process. In this study, usability was measured by a set of seven items: ability to inform what the program is doing, relevance to visual interfaces, degree of stimulation, degree of understandability, perceived time pressure, clearness of sound outputs, and degrees of satisfaction. Through the experimental research, the results showed that verbal messages provided the highest level of usability. On the contrary, auditory icons showed the lowest level of usability, as they require users to establish new coding schemes, and thus demand more mental effort from users.

• Journal of the HCI Society of Korea
• /
• v.11 no.2
• /
• pp.15-22
• /
• 2016

The ways to interact with digital appliances are becoming more diverse. Users can control appliances using a remote control and a touch-screen, and appliances can send users feedback through various ways such as sound, voice, and visual signals. However, there is little research on how to define which output method to use for providing feedback according to the user' input method. In this study, we designed an experimental study that seeks to identify how to appropriately match the output method - voice and sound - based on the user input - voice and button. We made four types of interaction with two kinds input methods and two kinds of output methods. For the four interaction types, we compared the usability, perceived satisfaction, preference and suitability. Results reveals that the output method affects the ease of use and perceived satisfaction of the input method. The voice input method with sound feedback was evaluated more satisfying than with the voice feedback. However, the keying input method with voice feedback was evaluated more satisfying than with sound feedback. The keying input method was more dependent on the output method than the voice input method. We also found that the feedback method of appliances determines the perceived appropriateness of the interaction.