Evaluation of earcons for portable digital electronic products considering perceptual user characteristics

Earcons, nonverbal sound feedback, have been used for electronic products to give appropriate feedback information for the selected user functions. This study evaluated earcon usability of a portable digital electronic product based on cognition time, error rate, and subjective feelings using 20 male and female subjects. For subjective evaluation, the study assessed various earcons by subjective impression of sounds using 7‐point rating scales. For earcon usability performance, major user functions were used for the product with currently available earcons and for the product with the new earcons (suggested by this study), which considered perceptual characteristics, such as loudness and melody. Statistical results from the study indicated that the new earcons significantly reduced user error rates and therefore generally improved user performance on major functions, such as “PLAY,” “OFF,” “STOP,” “FF” (fast forward), and “REW” (rewind). Subjective data results also showed that users were more satisfied with the new, melody‐based sound feedback. Practical guidelines for sound feedback design of a small digital product are suggested. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.