Towards a Modeling Language for Designing Auditory Interfaces

Auditory applications are systems that communicate content, navigation capabilities and functionality mainly via the aural channel, or via a combination of the aural and visual channels, and can support the user interaction in a multimodal fashion as well (e.g. through touch or speech). In this paper, we present the preliminary results of an exploratory research effort aimed at establishing a design modeling language for auditory applications, by extending an existing interactive application design model (IDM, Interactive Dialogue Model) used in the area of hypermedia and information-intensive applications. Our exploratory research capitalizes on previous experience in hypermedia modeling, aural information architectures, and design of auditory applications. We use an auditory application, the Acoustic Edutainment Interface (AEDIN), as a real case study to inform and exemplify the use of the modeling language.