Utilizing Audio Cues to Raise Awareness and Entice Interaction on Public Displays

Abstract

We present a study on the use of audio-based cues to help overcome the well-known issue of display blindness, i.e. to help people become aware of situated interactive public displays. We used three different types of auditory cues based on suggestions from literature, namely spoken message, auditory icon, and random melody, and also included a no-audio condition as control. The study ran for 8 days on a university campus using an in-the-wild design, during which both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered. Results show that audio in general is good at attracting attention to the displays, and spoken message in particular also helps people understand that the display in question is i..