Auditory User Interfaces: Toward the Speaking Computer describes a speech-enabling approach that separates computation from the user interface and integrates speech into the human-computer interaction. The Auditory User Interface (AUI) works directly with the computational core of the application, the same as the Graphical User Interface. The author's approach is implemented in two large systems, ASTER - a computing system that produces high-quality interactive aural renderings of electronic documents - and Emacspeak - a fully-fledged speech interface to workstations, including fluent spoken access to the World Wide Web and many desktop applications. Using this approach, developers can design new high-quality AUIs. Auditory interfaces are presented using concrete examples that have been implemented on an electronic desktop. This aural desktop system enables applications to produce auditory output using the same information used for conventional visual output. Auditory User Interfaces: Toward the Speaking Computer is for the electrical and computer engineering professional in the field of computer/human interface design. It will also be of interest to academic and industrial researchers, and engineers designing and implementing computer systems that speak. Communication devices such as hand-held computers, smart telephones, talking web browsers, and others will need to incorporate speech-enabling interfaces to be effective.

Auditory Interfaces explores how human-computer interactions can be significantly enhanced through the improved use of the audio channel. Providing historical, theoretical and practical perspectives, the book begins with an introductory overview, before presenting cutting-edge research with chapters on embodied music recognition, nonspeech audio, and user interfaces. This book will be of interest to advanced students, researchers and professionals working in a range of fields, from audio sound systems, to human-computer interaction and computer science.

This book focuses on a special group of auditory interfaces using spatial sound for the representation of information. The addition of information on the location of a selected sound source or a group of sources shows many advantages over a mere single-channel audio. This survey explains the most important limitations of the human hearing system and the perception of spatial sound. It also includes some technical background and basic processing and programming techniques for the creation and reproduction of spatial sounds with different audio equipment. Spatial auditory interfaces have evolved significantly in the last couple of years and can be found in a variety of environments where visual communication is obstructed or completely blocked by other activities, such as walking, driving, flying, operating multimodal virtual displays, etc. An entire chapter of this survey is dedicated to the most important areas of spatial auditory displays: mobile devices and computers, virtual environments, aircrafts and vehicles, visually impaired and blind computers users, and brain-computer interfaces.

"Auditory Interfaces explores how human-computer interactions can be significantly enhanced through the improved use of the audio channel. Providing historical, theoretical and practical perspectives, the book begins with an introductory overview, before presenting cutting-edge research with chapters on embodied music recognition, nonspeech audio, and user interfaces. This book will be of interest to advanced students, researchers and professionals working in a range of fields, from audio sound systems, to human-computer interaction and computer science"--

Abstract: " This paper describes work to provide mappings between X-based graphical interfaces and auditory interfaces. In our system, dubbed Mercator, this mapping is transparent to applications. The primary motivation for this work is to provide accessibility to graphical applications for users who are blind or visually impaired. In this paper, I describe the design of an auditory interface which simulates many of the features of graphical interfaces. Some of these features have been evaluated in a small user study. I will present lessons learned from this study as well as discuss areas for further work."

This book is a comprehensive and authoritative guide to voice user interface (VUI) design. The VUI is perhaps the most critical factor in the success of any automated speech recognition (ASR) system, determining whether the user experience will be satisfying or frustrating, or even whether the customer will remain one. This book describes a practical methodology for creating an effective VUI design. The methodology is scientifically based on principles in linguistics, psychology, and language technology, and is illustrated here by examples drawn from the authors' work at Nuance Communications, the market leader in ASR development and deployment. The book begins with an overview of VUI design issues and a description of the technology. The authors then introduce the major phases of their methodology. They first show how to specify requirements and make high-level design decisions during the definition phase. They next cover, in great detail, the design phase, with clear explanations and demonstrations of each design principle and its real-world applications. Finally, they examine problems unique to VUI design in system development, testing, and tuning. Key principles are illustrated with a running sample application. A companion Web site provides audio clips for each example: www.VUIDesign.org The cover photograph depicts the first ASR system, Radio Rex: a toy dog who sits in his house until the sound of his name calls him out. Produced in 1911, Rex was among the few commercial successes in earlier days of speech recognition. Voice User Interface Design reveals the design principles and practices that produce commercial success in an era when effective ASRs are not toys but competitive necessities.