Sonification and Auditory Displays in Electronic Devices

Sonification is the intentional use of sound to represent data. As visual displays both shrink and grow, as datasets grow in size and complexity, and as mobile data access increases, sophisticated auditory displays become crucial. Computers and devices that support audio are widespread, but there remains relatively little knowledge and experience among user interface designers in how to use auditory displays effectively. This paper present a taxonomy of auditory display methods, and discusses implementation and design issues in multimodal interaction. Some examples of auditory displays developed by the author’s research group, the Georgia Tech Sonification Lab, are presented.