Representing Complex Hierarchies with Earcons

This paper describes an experiment to discover if structured audio messages called earcons could provide navigational cues in a complex menu hierarchy. A hierarchy of 25 nodes and four levels was created with an earcon for each node. Rules were designed for the creation of the earcon at each node. The results showed that participants could recall over 80% of the earcons they heard, indicating that they are a good method of communicating hierarchy information. Participants were also tested to see if, by using the rules they had learned for the other earcons, they could identify where a previously unheard earcon would fit in the hierarchy. The results showed that they were able to do this very reliably. This indicates that earcons are a robust method of communicating complex hierarchy information in sound.