Stefan Lindberg

Digiwall: an interactive climbing wall

Digiwall is a climbing wall enhanced with hardware and software. It combines the computer game with sport climbing, and extends both concepts with new features. Digiwall frees the user from focusing on a computer screen. Instead sound and music are used to convey the gaming experience. The Digiwall concept is designed to support a large number of games, competitions, challenges and even aesthetic experiences. It is an example of how technology can promote physical activity and engage peoples senses and capabilities in a way that traditional computer gaming and sport climbing do not.

Beowulf: an audio mostly game

This paper stresses the importance and benefits of developing technique that let people use, reflect on and develop their capabilities to move, to imagine and to feel, and not only replace these abilities with computer technology. This paper describes a project that shifts focus from eye to ear in a computer game application in order to start answering questions about sounds ability to help users create inner, mental pictures and emotional responses to a game world. Can removing components from a computer game concept enhance the experience? Is less more.

Graded auditory warnings during in-vehicle use: using sound to guide drivers without additional noise

Auditory signals have proven useful to guide and inform drivers in dangerous situations. Sounds can become annoying, however, thereby negatively affecting consumer acceptance of an interface or system. Auditory warnings are typically salient sounds such as sudden beeps or repetitive tones. But adding sound to the environment is not necessarily the only way to aurally alert people to a change in the environment. The present study explored the usefulness of three alternative strategies to notify drivers in early stages of a threatening situation using sound: 1. panning the radio sound from the drivers position (equal sound level in both ears) to one side; 2. reducing the sound level of the radio; and 3. a mild auditory warning signal (i.e., an added sound). The participants responded to the early warnings in a simple reaction task while performing a simulated driving task. After each condition, the drivers completed a questionnaire concerning their opinions of the early warnings. Interestingly, the results show that manipulating the sound of the radio can be a useful way to notify drivers. Panning the sound of the radio may be especially effective and tolerable. Potential benefits and issues with the investigated warning strategies are discussed.

Testing two tools for multimodal navigation

The latest smartphones with GPS, electronic compasses, directional audio, touch screens, and so forth, hold a potential for location-based services that are easier to use and that let users focus on their activities and the environment around them. Rather than interpreting maps, users can search for information by pointing in a direction and database queries can be created from GPS location and compass data. Users can also get guidance to locations through point and sweep gestures, spatial sound, and simple graphics. This paper describes two studies testing two applications withmultimodal user interfaces for navigation and information retrieval. The applications allow users to search for information and get navigation support using combinations of point and sweep gestures, nonspeech audio, graphics, and text. Tests show that users appreciated both applications for their ease of use and for allowing users to interact directly with the surrounding environment.

REMUPP: an interface for evaluation of relations between musical parameters and perceived properties

New media offers new roles, functions and challenges to music, calling for new methods and tools for music research. To meet these increasingly important challenges. REMUPP, a new software tool for the investigation of relations between music and perceived properties or characteristies, was designed. The ideas behind REMUPP and the technology used to realize it is deseribed. In order to test the sensitivity and validity of REMUPP. a simple experiment aimed to examine some properties of music was carried out. 38 subjects were listening to music and instructed to indicate their priority for different aspects of the music (musical parameters) while they actively controlled these aspects. The results show that REMUPP is able to bring out significant differences between the musical parameters, and that these differences correspond well with findings by others.

OREGANO: Play a concert organ using your voice

This paper describes the first version of Oregano, a system that allows people to interact with a large concert organ using their voices and a touch display. The main objective of the design was to increase the organs accessibility for the general public and enhance their experience when visiting the Studio Acusticum concert hall in Piteå, Sweden. A number of built-in prerecorded songs allow visitors and concert-hall personnel to easily experience and demonstrate the instruments capabilities. In addition, the voice interaction facilitates new types of fun interaction and musical expressions using the instrument. The concept will be set up in a permanent installation inside the concert hall during upcoming work.

Designing a Multimodal Warning Display for an Industrial Control Room

This paper presents the development of a multimodal warning display for a paper mill control room. In previous work, an informative auditory display for control room warnings was proposed. The proposed auditory solution conveys information about urgent events by using a combination of auditory icons and tonal components. The main aim of the present study was to investigate if a complementary visual display could increase the effectiveness and acceptance of the existing auditory solution. The visual display was designed in a user-driven design process with operators. An evaluation was conducted both before and after the implementation. Subjective ratings showed that operators found it easier to identify the alarming section using the multimodal display. These results can be useful for any designer intending to implement a multimodal display for warnings in an industrial context.

Designing auditory alarms for an industrial control room

Constantly increasing and more complex information flows in industrial control rooms raise the risk that operators will become distracted, confused and visually overloaded in demanding situations. ...

An auditory display that assist commercial drivers in lane changing situations

This paper presents a simulator study that evaluates four auditory displays to assist commercial drivers in lane changing situations. More specifically, the displays warned the drivers about vehicles in the adjacent lane. Three displays utilized different variants of graded auditory warnings (early and late signals) while one display contained a single-stage warning (late signal). For all graded warnings, a manipulation of the turn indicator sound was utilized to alert the driver. The study investigated whether the graded warnings had different effects on safety and driver acceptance compared to a single stage warning. In addition, the study examined whether the idea of changing the turn indicator sound influenced traffic safety and initial acceptance. The results support that graded warnings are more effective compared to single stage warnings. Manipulating the turn indicator was effective and the acceptance for the solution was high. The implications for design based on the results are presented.