A spatial audio user interface for generating music playlists

Abstract

This paper presents a user interface (UI) designed for non-visual interaction with a music collection. The UI system can be utilized to navigate a large list of musical items organized in a hierarchical structure, and to generate personal playlists. The interface only relies on stereo audio output and tactile input using a limited small of keys. This interaction scheme enables the use of the UI in situations where visual feedback is limited on the device, or when visual attention from the user is not possible or desired. However, the interface was also designed to be compatible with and complementary to visual UI concepts found in existing audio players. The design and implementation of this spatial audio UI is described in the paper. Preliminary subjective tests are also reported regarding the immediate usability of this interface, when in `eyesfree' mode on a handheld computer.