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One specific sound sketch was selected from each category to be used during a user testing study. In this study the research team investigated the user's ability to derive data/meaning from the selected sonifications and solicited feedback about the user’s experience of each sonification. All four sonifications represented the same data set derived from a simple pie chart titled “Canadian Smartphone Marketshare 2015”. This pie chart contained 5 segments for the following values: Android 48%, Apple 28%, Blackberry 18%, Microsoft 4%, All Others 2%.
Stimuli
- Sonification #1 Sonification#1 - first category: In this sonification units of ten are represented by a long beep and units of one by a short beep. The beeps are of similar quality but units of one are represented by a sound of lower pitch and shorter duration. This sonification consists of 5 sequential segments. Each segment starts with a spoken label followed by a series of long and short beeps that represent the corresponding value for that segment. For instance, the Android section is composed of four long beeps and 8 short beeps and the Microsoft section only includes 4 short beeps. The segments are presented in a descending order from the largest piece to the smallest. [2]
- Sonification #2 Sonification#2 - second category: This sonification consists of 5 sequential segments. Each segment starts with a spoken label followed by a long tone. To build this sonification, the value of 100% was assigned a duration of 10 seconds, and the duration of each segment was calculated as X% of 10 sec. For instance, the duration of long tone for Android is 4.8 seconds and for Microsoft is 0.4 seconds. The segments are presented in a descending order from the longest segment to the shortest. [3]
- Sonification #3 Sonification#3 - third category: This sonification consists of 5 sequential segments. Each segment starts with a spoken label followed by a specific synthesized sound. In this case, a unique, repetitive and percussive sound was chosen for each segment. A similar logic as in the previous sonification was used to calculate the duration of each segment. The segments are presented in a descending order from the longest segment to the shortest. [4]
- Sonification #4 Sonification#4 - fourth category: This sonification consists of 5 segments. A similar logic as per two previous sonifications was used to build each segment. This sonification starts with an audio legend. Each label is spoken, followed by a 2 second preview of its corresponding sound. The audio legend is followed by the stacked audio sonification representing the entire chart. Depending on each segment’s duration, each sound has a different starting point. For example, Android, having the highest value, comes in first, while Apple joins in after 2 seconds, and so on until all sounds are playing together and all end at the same time. [5]
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