Sonification design patterns

Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD), Boston, MA, July 7-9, 2003.Most product designers have little or no experience with sonifications. Designers from a range of different domains use a common method called Design Patterns to describe ``solutions to problems in context'' in a way that can be readily understood and reused. Design Patterns may provide a way to communicate sonification research results with product designers and other design communities. I have written a handful of prototype Sonification Design Patterns from papers in the ICAD 2002 proceedings. The papers I selected had clear statements of hypotheses, results to support them, and repeated examples elsewhere in the proceedings. These Patterns are now on the SonificationDesignPatterns site on the WikiWeb and can be edited and added to using any internet browser. The lively development of SonificationDesignPatterns by the ICAD community may help build sonification-specific vocabulary, identify sonification hypotheses, and allow product designers to pick up and apply our research

The visual and beyond : characterizing experiences with auditory, haptic and visual data representations

Research in sonification and physicalization have expanded data representation techniques to include senses beyond the visual. Yet, little is known of how people interpret and make sense of haptic and sonic compared to visual representations. We have conducted two phenomenologically oriented comparative studies (applying the Repertory Grid and the Microphenomenological interview technique) to gather in-depth accounts of people's interpretation and experience of different representational modalities that included auditory, haptic and visual variations . Our findings show a rich characterization of these different representational modalities: our visually oriented representations engage through their familiarity, accuracy and easy interpretation, while our representations that stimulated auditory and haptic interpretation were experienced as more ambiguous, yet stimulated an engaging interpretation of data that involved the whole body. We describe and discuss in detail participants' processes of making sense and generating meaning using the modalities' unique characteristics, individually and as a group. Our research informs future research in the area of multimodal data representations from both a design and methodological perspective.Postprin

Investigating Perceptual Congruence Between Data and Display Dimensions in Sonification

The relationships between sounds and their perceived meaning and connotations are complex, making auditory perception an important factor to consider when designing sonification systems. Listeners often have a mental model of how a data variable should sound during sonification and this model is not considered in most data:sound mappings. This can lead to mappings that are difficult to use and can cause confusion. To investigate this issue, we conducted a magnitude estimation experiment to map how roughness, noise and pitch relate to the perceived magnitude of stress, error and danger. These parameters were chosen due to previous findings which suggest perceptual congruency between these auditory sensations and conceptual variables. Results from this experiment show that polarity and scaling preference are dependent on the data:sound mapping. This work provides polarity and scaling values that may be directly utilised by sonification designers to improve auditory displays in areas such as accessible and mobile computing, process-monitoring and biofeedback

Efficiency and safety of varying the frequency of whole blood donation (INTERVAL): a randomised trial of 45 000 donors

Background: Limits on the frequency of whole blood donation exist primarily to safeguard donor health. However, there is substantial variation across blood services in the maximum frequency of donations allowed. We compared standard practice in the UK with shorter inter-donation intervals used in other countries. Methods: In this parallel group, pragmatic, randomised trial, we recruited whole blood donors aged 18 years or older from 25 centres across England, UK. By use of a computer-based algorithm, men were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 12-week (standard) versus 10-week versus 8-week inter-donation intervals, and women were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to 16-week (standard) versus 14-week versus 12-week intervals. Participants were not masked to their allocated intervention group. The primary outcome was the number of donations over 2 years. Secondary outcomes related to safety were quality of life, symptoms potentially related to donation, physical activity, cognitive function, haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and deferrals because of low haemoglobin. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, number ISRCTN24760606, and is ongoing but no longer recruiting participants. Findings: 45 263 whole blood donors (22 466 men, 22 797 women) were recruited between June 11, 2012, and June 15, 2014. Data were analysed for 45 042 (99·5%) participants. Men were randomly assigned to the 12-week (n=7452) versus 10-week (n=7449) versus 8-week (n=7456) groups; and women to the 16-week (n=7550) versus 14-week (n=7567) versus 12-week (n=7568) groups. In men, compared with the 12-week group, the mean amount of blood collected per donor over 2 years increased by 1·69 units (95% CI 1·59–1·80; approximately 795 mL) in the 8-week group and by 0·79 units (0·69–0·88; approximately 370 mL) in the 10-week group (p<0·0001 for both). In women, compared with the 16-week group, it increased by 0·84 units (95% CI 0·76–0·91; approximately 395 mL) in the 12-week group and by 0·46 units (0·39–0·53; approximately 215 mL) in the 14-week group (p<0·0001 for both). No significant differences were observed in quality of life, physical activity, or cognitive function across randomised groups. However, more frequent donation resulted in more donation-related symptoms (eg, tiredness, breathlessness, feeling faint, dizziness, and restless legs, especially among men [for all listed symptoms]), lower mean haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and more deferrals for low haemoglobin (p<0·0001 for each) than those observed in the standard frequency groups. Interpretation: Over 2 years, more frequent donation than is standard practice in the UK collected substantially more blood without having a major effect on donors' quality of life, physical activity, or cognitive function, but resulted in more donation-related symptoms, deferrals, and iron deficiency. Funding: NHS Blood and Transplant, National Institute for Health Research, UK Medical Research Council, and British Heart Foundation

Longer-term efficiency and safety of increasing the frequency of whole blood donation (INTERVAL): extension study of a randomised trial of 20 757 blood donors

Background: The INTERVAL trial showed that, over a 2-year period, inter-donation intervals for whole blood donation can be safely reduced to meet blood shortages. We extended the INTERVAL trial for a further 2 years to evaluate the longer-term risks and benefits of varying inter-donation intervals, and to compare routine versus more intensive reminders to help donors keep appointments. Methods: The INTERVAL trial was a parallel group, pragmatic, randomised trial that recruited blood donors aged 18 years or older from 25 static donor centres of NHS Blood and Transplant across England, UK. Here we report on the prespecified analyses after 4 years of follow-up. Participants were whole blood donors who agreed to continue trial participation on their originally allocated inter-donation intervals (men: 12, 10, and 8 weeks; women: 16, 14, and 12 weeks). They were further block-randomised (1:1) to routine versus more intensive reminders using computer-generated random sequences. The prespecified primary outcome was units of blood collected per year analysed in the intention-to-treat population. Secondary outcomes related to safety were quality of life, self-reported symptoms potentially related to donation, haemoglobin and ferritin concentrations, and deferrals because of low haemoglobin and other factors. This trial is registered with ISRCTN, number ISRCTN24760606, and has completed. Findings: Between Oct 19, 2014, and May 3, 2016, 20 757 of the 38 035 invited blood donors (10 843 [58%] men, 9914 [51%] women) participated in the extension study. 10 378 (50%) were randomly assigned to routine reminders and 10 379 (50%) were randomly assigned to more intensive reminders. Median follow-up was 1·1 years (IQR 0·7–1·3). Compared with routine reminders, more intensive reminders increased blood collection by a mean of 0·11 units per year (95% CI 0·04–0·17; p=0·0003) in men and 0·06 units per year (0·01–0·11; p=0·0094) in women. During the extension study, each week shorter inter-donation interval increased blood collection by a mean of 0·23 units per year (0·21–0·25) in men and 0·14 units per year (0·12–0·15) in women (both p<0·0001). More frequent donation resulted in more deferrals for low haemoglobin (odds ratio per week shorter inter-donation interval 1·19 [95% CI 1·15–1·22] in men and 1·10 [1·06–1·14] in women), and lower mean haemoglobin (difference per week shorter inter-donation interval −0·84 g/L [95% CI −0·99 to −0·70] in men and −0·45 g/L [–0·59 to −0·31] in women) and ferritin concentrations (percentage difference per week shorter inter-donation interval −6·5% [95% CI −7·6 to −5·5] in men and −5·3% [–6·5 to −4·2] in women; all p<0·0001). No differences were observed in quality of life, serious adverse events, or self-reported symptoms (p>0.0001 for tests of linear trend by inter-donation intervals) other than a higher reported frequency of doctor-diagnosed low iron concentrations and prescription of iron supplements in men (p<0·0001). Interpretation: During a period of up to 4 years, shorter inter-donation intervals and more intensive reminders resulted in more blood being collected without a detectable effect on donors' mental and physical wellbeing. However, donors had decreased haemoglobin concentrations and more self-reported symptoms compared with the initial 2 years of the trial. Our findings suggest that blood collection services could safely use shorter donation intervals and more intensive reminders to meet shortages, for donors who maintain adequate haemoglobin concentrations and iron stores. Funding: NHS Blood and Transplant, UK National Institute for Health Research, UK Medical Research Council, and British Heart Foundation

Embedding Sonifications In Things

Presented at the 19th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2013) on July 6-9, 2013 in Lodz, Poland.This paper describes three experimental prototypes that explore the embedding of sonifications in things. Through previous work with mobile sonifications we identified requirements for Òsonifications in the wildÓ as being embedded, expendable, and extendeable. Three prototypes, called Flotsam, Jetsam and Lagan, investigate technologies, sounds, materials and metaphors to define and illustrate the design space. The knowledge gained from these prototypes has led to the development of the open source Mozzi sonification library on the Arduino microprocessor