Formal Usability Evaluation of Audio Track Widget Graphical Representation for Two-Dimensional Stage Audio Mixing Interface (original) (raw)

Novel Designs for the Audio Mixing Interface Based on Data Visualisation First Principles

2016

Given the shortcomings of current audio mixing interfaces (AMIs) this study focuses on the development of alternative AMIs based on data visualisation first principles. The elementary perceptual tasks defined by Cleveland informed the design process. Two design ideas were considered for pan: using the elementary perceptual tasks ‘scale’ to display pan on either a single or multiple horizontal lines. Four design ideas were considered for level: using ‘length’, ‘area’, ‘saturation’ or ‘scalable icon’ for visualisation. Each level idea was prototyped with each pan idea, totalling eight novel interfaces. Seven subjects undertook a usability evaluation, replicating a 16 channel reference mix with each interface. Results showed that ‘scalable icons’, especially on multiple horizontal lines appear to show potential.

Visually Representing and Interpreting Multivariate Data for Audio Mixing

The majority of Digital Audio Workstation designs represent mix data using a channel strip metaphor. While this is a familiar design based on physical mixing desk layout, it can lead to a visually complex interface incorporating a large number of User Interface objects which can increase the need for navigation and disrupt the mixing workflow. Within other areas of data visualisation, multi-variate data objects such as glyphs are used to simultaneously represent a number of parameters within one graph-ical object by assigning data to specific visual variables. This can reduce screen clutter, enhance visual search and support visual analysis and interpretation of data. This paper reports on two subjective evaluation studies that investigate the efficacy of different design strategies to visually encode mix information (volume, pan, reverb and delay) within a stage metaphor mixer using multivar-iate data objects and a channel strip design using faders and dials. The analysis of the data suggest that compared to channel strip designs, multivariate objects can lead to quicker visual search without any subsequent reduction in search accuracy.

The effect of differing user interface presentation styles on audio mixing

When mixing audio on computers, users need to be able to attend to both visual and auditory information and share their attention between the two modalities. This study aims to investigate to what extent User Interface (UI) design has an effect on mixing workflow by analysing whether different presentation styles result in more efficient coordination between critical listening and interface manipulation tasks. The results show that while differing UI designs do not significantly affect critical listening reaction times, they do provide more efficient task sharing between visual and auditory tasks.

Towards a more flexible and creative music mixing interface

CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems on - CHI EA '13, 2013

This paper presents the ongoing work towards creating a novel interface for mixing music. It identifies 5 key design factors crucial for the development and evaluation of such an interface. It then shortly presents an initial prototype, which implements a stage metaphor control structure. Finally two initial evaluation activities are briefly presented and discussed, one of which compares multi touch to two different tangible user interface interaction schemes. Preliminary results suggest that tangible controls outperform and are preferred over multi touch.

Mixploration: Rethinking the Audio Mixer Interface

A typical audio mixer interface consists of faders and knobs that control the amplitude level as well as processing (e.g. equalization, compression and reverberation) parameters of individual tracks. This interface, while widely used and effective for optimizing a mix, may not be the best interface to facilitate exploration of different mixing options. In this work, we rethink the mixer interface, describing an alternative interface for exploring the space of possible mixes of four audio tracks. In a user study with 24 participants, we compared the effectiveness of this interface to the traditional paradigm for exploring alternative mixes. In the study, users responded that the proposed alternative interface facilitated exploration and that they considered the process of rating mixes to be beneficial.

A Visualization Tool to Explore Interactive Sound Installations

NIME 2021

This paper presents a theoretical framework for describing interactive sound installations, along with an interactive database, on a web application, for visualizing various features of sound installations. A corpus of 195 interactive sound installations was reviewed to derive a taxonomy describing them across three perspectives: Artistic Intention, Interaction and System Design. A web application is provided to dynamically visualize and explore the corpus of sound installations using interactive charts (https://isi-database.herokuapp.com/). Our contribution is two-sided: we provide a theoretical framework to characterize interactive sound installations as well as a tool to inform sound artists and designers about up-to-date practices regarding interactive sound installations design.

Paths in Interactive Sound Visualization: From AVOL to AV Clash

Proceedings of Sound and Music Computing Conference 2012, 2012

This paper compares two multimodal net art projects, AVOL and AV Clash, by the author and André Carrilho (under the name Video Jack). Their objective is to create projects enabling integrated audiovisual expression that are flexible, easy to use, playful and engaging to experience. The projects are contextualized with related works. The methodology for the research is presented, with an emphasis on experience-focused Human-Computer Inter- action (HCI) perspectives. The comparative evaluation of the projects focuses on the analysis of the answers to an online questionnaire. AVOL and AV Clash have adopted an Interactive AudioVisual Objects (IAVO) approach, which is a major contribution from these projects, con- sisting of the integration of sound, audio visualization and Graphical User Interface (GUI). Strengths and weaknesses detected in the projects are analysed. Generic conclusions are discussed, mainly regarding simplicity and harmony versus complexity and serendipity in audiovis- ual projects. Finally, paths for future development are presented.

VISUALIZING AND CONTROLLING SOUND WITH GRAPHICAL INTERFACES

Audio Engineering Society 41st Conference: Audio for Games (2011).

Developments in abstract representations of sound from the field of computer music have potential applications for designers of musical computer games. Research in cognition has identified correlations in the perceptions of visual objects and audio events; -experiments show that test subjects associate certain qualities of graphical shapes with those of vocal sounds. Such 'sound symbolism' has been extended to non-vocal sounds and this paper describes attempts to exploit this and other phenomenon in the visualization of audio. The ideas are expanded upon to propose control for sound synthesis through the manipulation of virtual shapes. Mappings between parameters in the auditory and visual feedback modes are discussed. An exploratory user test examines the technique using a prototype system.

Analyzing journeys in sound: usability of graphical interpolators for sound design

Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 2020

Graphical interpolation systems provide a simple mechanism for the control of sound synthesis by providing a level of abstraction above the engine parameters, allowing users to explore different sounds without awareness of the underlying details. Typically, a graphical interpolator presents the user with a two-dimensional pane where a number of synthesizer presets, each representing a collection of synthesis parameter values, can be located. Moving an interpolation cursor within the pane results in the calculation of new parameter values, based on its position, the relative locations of the presets, and the mathematical interpolation function, thus generating new sounds. These systems supply users with two sensory modalities in the form of sonic output and visual feedback from the interface. A number of graphical interpolator systems have been developed over the years, with a variety of user-interface designs, but few have been subject to formal user evaluation. Our testing studied ...

Track Displays in DAW Software: Beyond Waveform Views

Audio Engineering Society …, 2010

For decades, digital audio workstation software has displayed the content of audio tracks through bare waveforms. We argue that the same real estate on the computer screen can be used for far more expressive and goal-oriented visualizations. Starting from a range of ...