Mobile Service Awareness via Auditory Notifications

Placed within the realms of Human Computer Interaction, this thesis contributes towards the goals of Ubiquitous Computing, where mobile devices can provide anywhere, anytime support to people’s everyday activities. With interconnected computing devices distributed in our habitat, services relevant to any situation may be always available to address our needs. However, despite the enhanced capabilities of mobile phones, users had been reluctant to adopt any services other than calls and messaging. This has been changing more recently, especially since the launch of the iPhone, with users getting access to hundreds of services. The original question motivating the research presented in this thesis “How can we improve mobile service usage?” is in the interest of enthusiasts of mobile services as well as slow adopters. We propose the concept of ‘mobile service awareness’ and operationalise it through the more focused research question: “How can we design for non-intrusive yet informative auditory mobile service notifications?” We design and conduct a series of surveys, laboratory experiments and longitudinal field studies to address this question. Our results, also informed by literature on context-aware computing, awareness, notification systems and auditory interface design, produce two distinct major contributions. First, we provide a set of conclusions on the relative efficiency of auditory icons and earcons as auditory notifications. Second, we produce a set of design guidelines for the two types of notifications, based on the critical evaluation of the methodologies we develop and adapt from the literature. Although these contributions were made with mobile service notification in mind, they are arguably useful for designers of any auditory interfaces conveying complex concepts (such as mobile services) and are used in attention demanding contexts.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

From sound quality to sound systems: a retrospective study

The current socio-technological context encourages the increase of products with increasingly complex and advanced interfaces. Sound is a valuable resource capable of facilitating interaction between product and user, and conveying information about events of different nature and criticality.However, design engineering lacks unified knowledge and a consensus methodology that facilitates the characterization of sound during product development processes. This article presents a retrospective, critical and systematic review of the most relevant theoretical and practical contributions applied in design engineering, from different scientific perspectives. The result is a map of publications classified in 6 large blocks, ranging from initial psychoacoustic studies, through observations on sound semantics, to the most up-to-date approaches supported by communication theories. In this way, researchers and developers in design engineering are provided with a guide and introduction to the main key aspects of sound study and in its application to product design domain. The article collects the main bibliographical references indicating whether they are theoretical or experimental studies, the scientific field with which they relate, their chronological location, and highlighting their main contributions

From Driver to Supervisor: Comparing Cognitive Load and EEG-based Attentional Resource Allocation across Automation Levels

With increasing automation, drivers' roles transition from active operators to passive system supervisors, affecting their behaviour and cognitive processes. This study addresses the attentional resource allocation and subjective cognitive load during manual, SAE Level 2, and SAE Level 3 driving in a realistic environment. An experiment was conducted on a test track with 30 participants using a prototype automated vehicle. While driving, participants were subjected to a passive auditory oddball task and their electroencephalogram was recorded. The study analysed the amplitude of the P3a event-related potential component elicited by novel environmental stimuli, an objective measure of attentional resource allocation. The subjective cognitive load was assessed using the NASA Task Load Index. Results showed no significant difference in subjective cognitive load between manual and Level 2 driving, but a decrease in subjective cognitive load in Level 3 driving. The P3a amplitude was highest during manual driving, indicating increased attentional resource allocation to environmental sounds compared to Level 2 and Level 3 driving. This may suggest that during automated driving, drivers allocate fewer attentional resources to processing environmental information. It remains unclear whether the decreased processing of environmental stimuli in automated driving is due to top-down attention control (leading to attention withdrawal) or bottom-up competition for resources induced by cognitive load. This study provides novel empirical evidence on resource allocation and subjective cognitive load in automated driving. The findings highlight the importance of managing drivers' attention and cognitive load with implications for enhancing automation safety and the design of user interfaces.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figure

Removing the HUD: The Impact of Non-Diegetic Game Elements and Expertise on Player Involvement

Previous research has shown that player involvement can be influenced by a range of factors, from the controllers used to the perceived level of challenge provided by the game. However, little attention has been paid to the influence of the game interface. Game interfaces consist of both diegetic (that can be viewed by the player-character, e.g. the game world) and non-diegetic components (that are only viewed by the player, e.g. the heads-up display). In this paper we examine two versions of a first-person shooter game to investigate how immersion is influenced through interacting with a diegetic and non-diegetic interface. Our findings suggest that the removal of non-diegetic elements, such as the heads-up display, is able to influence immersion in expert players through increasing their cognitive involvement and sense of control. We argue that these results illustrate the importance of considering the role of expertise in relation to how particular design choices will influence the player experience

Ambient Audio and Calm Technology

As technology becomes increasingly ubiquitous and mobile devices are joined and even outnumbered by wearables, the need for calm technologies, those that support and inform without demanding attention, grows more urgent. To help understand how audio may play a role in the development of such technologies, we examine a representation technique known as blended sonification which utilizes sounds already present in the environment. We describe the implementation of two prototype calm technologies, Sonification Station and Audio Poke, and report the results of two experiments in which music was used as a medium for blended sonification. Participants performed similarly on a transcription task when a traditional alert sound was replaced by blended music sonification as a form of notification, and participants across levels of music training were generally proficient at detecting and identifying audio effects applied to music

Musical Haptics

Haptic Musical Instruments; Haptic Psychophysics; Interface Design and Evaluation; User Experience; Musical Performanc

The Role of Entrainment on an Older Adult’s Stress and Anxiety: A Mixed Methods Study

Elderly individuals diagnosed with dementia seem to exhibit similar characteristics; anxiety, depression, isolation, pain, and accumulated stress. it is the desire of this researcher to investigate the role of entrainment on an elderly individuals stress and anxiety. The researcher conducts a mixed method study that evaluates quantitative measures such as heart rate and blood pressure, and qualitative measures through interviews. Overall, the findings lead the researcher to believe that entrainment in music therapy can affect an elderly individuals stress and anxiety in a positive way

A survey on hardware and software solutions for multimodal wearable assistive devices targeting the visually impaired

The market penetration of user-centric assistive devices has rapidly increased in the past decades. Growth in computational power, accessibility, and cognitive device capabilities have been accompanied by significant reductions in weight, size, and price, as a result of which mobile and wearable equipment are becoming part of our everyday life. In this context, a key focus of development has been on rehabilitation engineering and on developing assistive technologies targeting people with various disabilities, including hearing loss, visual impairments and others. Applications range from simple health monitoring such as sport activity trackers, through medical applications including sensory (e.g. hearing) aids and real-time monitoring of life functions, to task-oriented tools such as navigational devices for the blind. This paper provides an overview of recent trends in software and hardware-based signal processing relevant to the development of wearable assistive solutions

Musical Haptics

Haptic Musical Instruments; Haptic Psychophysics; Interface Design and Evaluation; User Experience; Musical Performanc