Auditory Warning Signals: New Concepts and Approaches

Abstract

The importance of auditory warning signals has long been recognized by designers, yet the design of current auditory warnings are often cited as fundamentally flawed by numerous shortcomings. This symposium, using the medical domain as the context, begins by introducing the status quo and trends in auditory warning design, and discusses the current problems within this setting. We continue with a presentation of the efforts of the International Organization for Standards (ISO) to improve auditory warnings for current and future medical devices. Informative auditory signals are discussed in the final two presentations, focusing first on techniques using “earcons,” “sonification,” in general, and then examining how these continuous and intermittent auditory warnings and informative displays could support the users' tasks.