Blended Sonification: Sonification for Casual Interaction

In recent years, graphical user interfaces have become almost ubiquitous in form of notebooks, smartphones and tablets. These systems normally force the user to attend to an often very specific and narrow screen and thus squeeze the information through a chokepoint. This ties the users’ attention to the device and affects other activities and social interaction. In this paper we introduce Blended Sonifications as sonifications that blend into the users’ environment without confronting users with any explicitly perceived technology. Blended Sonification systems can either be used to display information or to provide ambient communication channels. We present a framework that guides developers towards the identification of suitable information sources and appropriate auditory interfaces. We aim at improving the design of interactions and experiences. Along with the introduction and definition of the framework, this paper presents interface examples, both for mediated communication and information display applications.