Audio Navigation: Using Spatial Audio In Ubiquitous Interfaces

Day, Robert; Holland, Simon; Bowers, David and Dil, Anton (2004). Audio Navigation: Using Spatial Audio In Ubiquitous Interfaces. Technical Report 2004/16; Department of Computing, The Open University.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21954/ou.ro.0001601e

Abstract

An important current movement in computing is towards mobile and ubiquitous interaction. A major research field within mobile and ubiquitous computing is minimal attention interfaces. At present however, there is little in the way of validated heuristics to inform the design and implementation of minimal attention user interfaces. A paradigmatic example of a challenging mobile interaction task is physical navigation. A potentially promising solution to the problem of providing a minimal attention interface for physical navigation tasks is spatial audio. The initial focus of this research is to investigate the use of spatial audio as an element in a minimal attention interface to provide usable and meaningful navigation cues in one or more common navigational contexts. The aims of this project are to highlight problems, identify and analyse issues and evaluate potential solutions. Finally, we intend to formulate guidelines for the use of spatial audio in the wider context of minimal attention interfaces.