Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!mips!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!zazen!uwvax!heurikon!charlie.heurikon.com!graziano From: graziano@charlie.heurikon.com (John Graziano) Newsgroups: comp.human-factors Subject: Re: Audio feedback from GUI's Message-ID: <668@heurikon.heurikon.com> Date: 17 Jun 91 16:18:09 GMT References: <1991Jun12.171211.2716@cs.umn.edu> <663@heurikon.heurikon.com> Sender: news@heurikon.heurikon.com Reply-To: graziano@charlie.heurikon.com (John Graziano) Organization: Heurikon Corporation, Madison, WI Lines: 39 In article yee@osf.org (Michael K. Yee) writes: >> I'm sure there are some, but I can't think of any at the moment. >> >> --graz > > I think the most useful audio feedback I have is from my > DECstation's noisy DEC hard disk. The hard disk that has my swap > partition rattles whenever it is being accessed. From this audio > feedback, I know... > > a. when my compiles has finished > b. if my process has been swapped out (rattling when I try > to activate buttons/menus in the application) > c. if someone is accessing my machine (i.e. login, ftp, or > whatever). You're absolutely correct. I realized this as I was listening to my disk grind through the posting of the above message! (I *knew* I would think of something as soon as I posted the message :-) I get all of the above info from my hard disk, including being able to tell when my program hangs in a loop. However, the main advantage to this type of feedback is not that it provides more information than a visual display, but that it provides _cheaper_ information. I think that most people would rather get this feedback from disk noise rather than use CPU time to run a visual disk monitor, even if that monitor gave them more information. The other advantage to this feedback is that I tend to process it sub- consciously, only noticing the noise if it doesn't behave as I expect it to. At least in my case, it seems that visual information always has to be dealt with at a higher level of awareness. Maybe the idea of good information needs to be defined more specifically - ie. does "more information" == "better information" ? (now let's see if, once again, the last line of my article gets magically appended to the 'Subject' line) --graz