An Analysis of User Behavior in an Interactive Auditory Field

Auditory user interfaces provide a possibility for visually disabled people to interact with computers. These interfaces are formalized by four characteristics: interaction, relationship, state change awareness and cocktail party effect. We propose such an interface termed as an ”Interactive Auditory Field” (IAF) which satisfies these four characteristics and develop a prototype system that allows different types of auditory icons to be selected by the user. An experimental evaluation of the system revealed that users could not distinguish between different frequencies and therefore a sound synthesising method is required. Finally our informal approach to an interesting interface is offered to the workshop as a contribution for formalization.