stop looking for music and start listening to it:

auditory display in music collection interfaces

Becky Stewartrebecca.stewart@eecs.qmul.ac.uk

Centre for Digital MusicSchool of Electronic Engineering and Computer ScienceQueen Mary, University of London

In this talk we will ...

• Review how search and browse for information

In this talk we will ...

• Review how search and browse for information

• Look at current commercially-available interfaces

In this talk we will ...

• Review how search and browse for information

• Look at current commercially-available interfaces

• Discuss why listening should be integrated

In this talk we will ...

• Review how search and browse for information

• Look at current commercially-available interfaces

• Discuss why listening should be integrated

• Look at solutions presented by academia

In this talk we will ...

• Review how search and browse for information

• Look at current commercially-available interfaces

• Discuss why listening should be integrated

• Look at solutions presented by academia

• Review recent research from C4DM

In this talk we will ...

• Review how search and browse for information

• Look at current commercially-available interfaces

• Discuss why listening should be integrated

• Look at solutions presented by academia

• Review recent research from C4DM

• Wrap up and conclude

In this talk we will ...

how do we find information?

let’s start with something easy...

Familiar interface

Summarizes information

Users seldom scroll down, almost never go to next page

how about better browsing?

Easy to traverse information

Relationships between items can be inferred

Encourages browsing

what about something other than text?

Users seldom go on to next page of results

Broad overview, but can zoom in on specific result

All other information beyond image is suppressed, but recallable

what about time-based media?

Less helpful than the image search results

Difficult to navigate results

Have to go to web page to view any portion of the video

Music or audio results only is not an option

so what about music interfaces? how do we find music?

commercial interfaces use a combination of text fields and seed songs/artists

commercial interfaces use a combination of text fields and seed songs/artists

results are lists of text perhaps enhanced with images, general knowledge and hyperlinks

commercial interfaces use a combination of text fields and seed songs/artists

results are lists of text perhaps enhanced with images, general knowledge and hyperlinks

songs are played back one at a time and only if explicitly requested by user

why should audio be integrated?

Bjork / Björk

• textual metadata can be malformed or wrong

• an empty text field is less than inspiring

• text can be a barrier to discovery

• previous knowledge is needed

• difficult to move into tail, will stay in the head

Celma and Cano From hits to niches? or how popular artists can bias music recommendation and discovery. In Proc. of 2nd Workshop on Large-Scale Recommender Systems and the Netflix Prize Competition (ACM KDD), Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, August 2008.

listening makes a difference

• users make different judgements about playlists when metadata is missing

L. Barrington, R. Oda, and G. Lanckriet. Smarter than Genius: human evaluation of music recommender systems. In Proc. of ISMIR’09: 10th Int.Society for Music Information Retrieval Conf., pages 357–362, Kobe, Japan, October 2009.

listening is faster

• when search results are compiled into a single audio stream instead of a list of results, users find what they are looking for quicker

S. Ali and P. Aarabi. A cyclic interface for the presentation of multiple music files. IEEE Trans. on Multimedia, 10(5):780–793, August 2008.

• listeners can find music without a GUI faster than with an iPod, and be just as happy with their selection

Andreja Andric, Pierre-Louis Xech, and Andrea Fantasia, “Music mood wheel: Improving browsing experience on digital content through an audio interface,”in Proc. of 2nd Int. Conf. on Automated Production of Cross Media Content for Multi-Channel Distribution (AXMEDIS’06), 2006.

listening is effective

• users can understand and navigate a collection of music as effectively without a GUI as with one

• they are slower, but don’t make significantly more mistakes

S. Pauws, D. Bouwhuis, and B. Eggen. Programming and enjoying music with your eyes closed. In CHI ’00: Proc. of the SIGCHI Conf. on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 376–383. ACM, 2000. doi: 10.1145/332040.332460.

how can interfaces use more listening?

not by being VoiceOver

not by being VoiceOver

maps

mused

• passive listening

G. Coleman. Mused: navigating the personal sample library. In Proc. of ICMC: Int. Computer Music Conf., Copenhagen, Denmark, August 2007.

• youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuuESpj558Y&feature=related

mused

• passive listening

G. Coleman. Mused: navigating the personal sample library. In Proc. of ICMC: Int. Computer Music Conf., Copenhagen, Denmark, August 2007.

• youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuuESpj558Y&feature=related

sonic browser

• hugely influential interface

• introduced aurally exploring a map of sounds

• direct sonification

M. Fernström and E. Brazil. Sonic browsing: an auditory tool for multimedia asset management. In Proc. of ICAD ’01: Internation Conf. on Auditory Display, pages

132–135, Espoo, Finland, August 2001. M. Fernström and C. McNamara. After direct manipulation - direct sonification. In Proc. of ICAD ’98: Int. Conf. on Auditory Display, 1998.

soundtorch

• 3D version of sonic browser

S. Heise, M. Hlatky, and J. Loviscach. SoundTorch: Quick browsing in large audio collections. In Proc. of AES 125th Conv., San Francisco, CA, October 2008.

S. Heise, M. Hlatky, and J. Loviscach. Aurally and visually enhanced audio search with SoundTorch. In CHI ’09: Proc. of the 27th int. conf.e extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, pages 3241–3246, Boston, MA, USA, April 2009. doi: 10.1145/1520340.1520465.

• youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiwj7Td7Pec

soundtorch

• 3D version of sonic browser

S. Heise, M. Hlatky, and J. Loviscach. SoundTorch: Quick browsing in large audio collections. In Proc. of AES 125th Conv., San Francisco, CA, October 2008.

S. Heise, M. Hlatky, and J. Loviscach. Aurally and visually enhanced audio search with SoundTorch. In CHI ’09: Proc. of the 27th int. conf.e extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, pages 3241–3246, Boston, MA, USA, April 2009. doi: 10.1145/1520340.1520465.

• youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiwj7Td7Pec

neptune

• based on Islands of Music

P. Knees, M. Schedi, T. Pohle, and G. Widmer. An innovative three-dimensional user interface for exploring music collections enriched with meta-information from the web. In MULTIMEDIA ’06: Proc. of the 14th annual ACM int.l conf. on Multimedia, pages 17–24, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, 2006. doi: 10.1145/1180639.1180652.

neptune

• based on Islands of Music

P. Knees, M. Schedi, T. Pohle, and G. Widmer. An innovative three-dimensional user interface for exploring music collections enriched with meta-information from the web. In MULTIMEDIA ’06: Proc. of the 14th annual ACM int.l conf. on Multimedia, pages 17–24, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, 2006. doi: 10.1145/1180639.1180652.

sonixplorer

• extension of neptune

• landscape can be marked up by user

• introduced focus

• youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIfWg2Eex74

D. Lübbers. Sonixplorer: Combining visualization and auralization for content-based exploration of music collections. In Proc. of ISMIR’05: 6th Int. Society for Music Information Retrieval Conf., pages 590–593, London, UK, 2005.

D. Lübbers and M. Jarke. Adaptive multimodal exploration of music collections. In Proc. of ISMIR’09: 10th Int. Society for Music Information Retrieval Conf., pages 195–200, Kyoto, Japan, 2009.

sonixplorer

• extension of neptune

• landscape can be marked up by user

• introduced focus

• youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIfWg2Eex74

D. Lübbers. Sonixplorer: Combining visualization and auralization for content-based exploration of music collections. In Proc. of ISMIR’05: 6th Int. Society for Music Information Retrieval Conf., pages 590–593, London, UK, 2005.

D. Lübbers and M. Jarke. Adaptive multimodal exploration of music collections. In Proc. of ISMIR’09: 10th Int. Society for Music Information Retrieval Conf., pages 195–200, Kyoto, Japan, 2009.

what’s the problem?

what’s the problem?

• too much information thrown at the user

what’s the problem?

• too much information thrown at the user

• does not translate well to mobile devices

• rendering spatial audio

• reliance on screens

my research

virtual ambisonics

Number of convolutions increases with each sound source

Number of convolutions independent of the of sound sources

Number of convolutions independent of the of sound sources

Can do more efficient things in B-format domain

Can still do more efficient things in B-format domain

Can still do more efficient things in B-format domain

Only 3 convolutions and only need to store 3 filters

Can still do more efficient things in B-format domain

Only 3 convolutions and only need to store 3 filters

When compared to direct binaural, there are measurable differences.

Can still do more efficient things in B-format domain

Only 3 convolutions and only need to store 3 filters

When compared to direct binaural, there are measurable differences.

But listeners can’t tell the difference.

Can still do more efficient things in B-format domain

Only 3 convolutions and only need to store 3 filters

When compared to direct binaural, there are measurable differences.

But listeners can’t tell the difference.

So use the more efficient implementation.

build an interface which uses virtual ambisonics

task: browse a collection to select a single song

map paradigm without any visuals

evaluation

• user study with 12 users

• most liked the idea

• but the implementation needed improvement

• confusion as to how to navigate through the space

• some people adverse to concurrent playback

add visuals and improve physical controller, but keep dependence on audio

cyclic playback

• inspired by

S. Ali and P. Aarabi. A cyclic interface for the presentation of multiple music files. IEEE Trans. on Multimedia, 10(5):780–793, August 2008.

• hear everything within 20 seconds

• user can control concurrent playback

evaluation

• no formal evaluation, but demonstrated to a variety of individuals and small groups (approximately 40 people)

• improved interaction with physical controller

• perhaps too many controls, much steeper learning curve

• much room for improvement

art installation

Michela Magas

public installation

• shown in Information Aesthetics at SIGGRAPH 2009

• approximately 1000 passed through the exhibit

• children, students, artists, designers, technologists

• quick to bring smiles - it was fun, people even brought back friends to experience it

• easy to learn how to use

conclusions drawn from research

conclusions drawn from research

• context is key when shaping interaction

• users will approach an interface with previous knowledge, need to build on and incorporate that knowledge

conclusions drawn from research

• context is key when shaping interaction

• users will approach an interface with previous knowledge, need to build on and incorporate that knowledge

• audio can’t be subtle

• can’t rely on complex information to be universally implied through only audio

conclusions drawn from research

• context is key when shaping interaction

• users will approach an interface with previous knowledge, need to build on and incorporate that knowledge

• audio can’t be subtle

• can’t rely on complex information to be universally implied through only audio

• can (and should) be fun

conclusions drawn from research

• context is key when shaping interaction

• users will approach an interface with previous knowledge, need to build on and incorporate that knowledge

• audio can’t be subtle

• can’t rely on complex information to be universally implied through only audio

• can (and should) be fun

• maps aren’t great, there must be something better

why haven’t these ideas caught on?

• solutions use non-scalable algorithms that are impractical for commercial applications (a problem not limited to only interfaces within MIR)

• portability across devices

• many of them just don’t work that well

• most have very simple acoustics models

• too much information thrown at user, or information is not organized in an accessible way

flickr:matsber

flickr:jlcwalker

one more time

search engines are tuned for the type of information being sought

search engines are tuned for the type of information being sought

but they break down when presenting time-based media

search engines are tuned for the type of information being sought

but they break down when presenting time-based media

in our case, music

direct manipulation to direct sonification

direct manipulation to direct sonification

listen to the music first, then get more information if so desired

direct manipulation to direct sonification

listen to the music first, then get more information if so desired

this is done by using auditory displays

a lot of focus on map-based paradigms, but it may be time to move on

a lot of focus on map-based paradigms, but it may be time to move on

concurrent presentation of audio is a good idea

a lot of focus on map-based paradigms, but it may be time to move on

concurrent presentation of audio is a good idea

but spatialization should not be used to represent complex relationships

a lot of focus on map-based paradigms, but it may be time to move on

concurrent presentation of audio is a good idea

but spatialization should not be used to represent complex relationships

music is complex

incorporating listening improves music search and discovery

incorporating listening improves music search and discovery

so it should continue

incorporating listening improves music search and discovery

so it should continue

we haven’t figured out how to do it perfectly

incorporating listening improves music search and discovery

so it should continue

we haven’t figured out how to do it perfectly

need to turn fun toys into useful tools

thank you

these slides can be found at http://www.slideshare.net/beckystewart/presentations