Using Earcons to Improve the Usability of Tool Palettes

Abstract

This paper describes an experiment to investigate the effectiveness of adding sound to tool palettes. Palettes have usability problems because users need to see the information they present but they are often outside the area of visual focus. Non-speech sounds called earcons were used to indicate the current tool and tool changes so that users could tell what tool was in use, wherever they were looking. Experimental results showed a significant reduction in the number of tasks performed with the wrong tool. Users knew what me current tool was and did not try to perform tasks with the wrong one.