In Human-Computer interfaces, what are the advantages and disadvantages of using sound instead of visuals?
Sound can get lost quite easily among background noise, you have to be careful where it is used. Although this helps to localises sound to some degree, you hear something against background noise if you are close by. Sound is an immediate signal, the stimulus only lasts as long as the sound is playing. You can repeat the sound but that gets irritating. If you want to irritate people, even that is useful. Sound is unfocused. Anyone in the area of a sound can hear it, whereas people focus their vision directly. This is an advantage if you want to give a signal to many people at the same time (like a fire alarm) or if the target may be focused on something else (a text message beep). Sound can be focused with earphones or similar apartatus. Sound can also be directional, you can tell (roughly) how far away a sound source is even when you can’t see the source. An ambulance siren is a good example. Apart from speech, sound can only carry quite simple messages. Speech requires focus to under
