Attracktion: Field Evaluation of Multi-Track Audio as Unobtrusive Cues for Pedestrian Navigation

Belgium Listening to music while being on the move is common in our headphone society. However, if we want assistance in navigation from our smartphone, existing approaches either demand exclusive playback through the headphones or impact the listening experience of the music. We present a field evaluation of Attracktion, a spatial audio navigation system that leverages the access to single stems in a multi-track recording to minimize the impact on the listening experience. We compared Attracktion against current turn-by-turn navigation instructions in a field-study with 22 users and found that users perceived acoustic overlays with additional navigation information to have no impact on the listening experience. In terms of path efficiency, errors, and mental workload, Attracktion is on par with spoken turn-by-turn navigation instructions, and users liked it for the aspect of serendipity.

ISBN:9781450375160

Publication year:2020

Keywords:CCS Concepts: • Human-centered computing → Mixed / augmented reality

Accessibility:Closed