Examples of fleeting cues
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- Speech: Announce[+] ``title'' before speaking the
title.
- Non-speech: Play a short sound to indicate a bullet
when rendering itemized lists.
AsTeR minimizes the use of extra-textual
announcements by cueing document structure implicitly wherever
possible. Fleeting sound cues are associated with objects like
paragraphs and bulletted lists to convey structure efficiently. To
give a visual analogy, we all know what a table of numbers or a
centered paragraph look like, but what do they ``sound'' like?
Associating sound cues (earcons [BGB88]) with
specific structures takes a step towards answering this question.
Fleeting cues are typically used to introduce particular objects.
However, more than an introductory cue is needed when rendering complex
structures. For instance, a fleeting cue at the beginning of each
item is not sufficient when rendering an itemized list -the
listener is likely to forget the current context if the items are
complex.
In the visual setting, the logical structure of a list is
displayed by super-imposing indentation, an implicit layout cue,
on the text. AsTeR uses persistent audio cues to achieve a
similar effect. These cues consist of either a change
in some characteristic of the speaking voice or a sound that
repeats in the background and have the advantage of
being present during the entire rendering, without detracting from
the flow of information.
TV Raman
Thu Mar 9 20:10:41 EST 1995