A research studysubmitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering inInformation Management, School of Engineering and Technology

Research Studies Project Report (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2010

Relying only on visual presentation while performing multipletaskscan lead to distraction between primary and secondary tasks and delaysperception of critical information. This research has proposed the use of auditory displays with the purpose of enhancinginformation perception by adding another channel tocapture the user{u2019}s attention when needed. The audio-enhanced user interface was designed for the case study of a clamp-lift driver ina factory. Audio-encodings ofnominal, ordinal, and quantitative data types were designed by following accepted design principles. The following types of the interface designs were evaluated: visual cues only, visual plus auditory cues, and auditory cues only. A number of questionnaires are created to collect information concerning suitability and matching of audio-encodings. Two evaluations were conducted to find benefits and drawbacks of auditory displays against visual presentation when performing single task and dual task. The results indicate that sound is more useful as an alert signal than as an informative representation. Users most preferred the visual plus auditory interface. Comparing between visual only and auditory only interface, visual only was preferredfor single task while auditory only was preferred for dual task