Aural browsing on-the-go: listening-based back navigation in large web architectures

  • Authors:

  • Tao Yang;Mexhid Ferati;Yikun Liu;Romisa Rohani Ghahari;Davide Bolchini

  • Affiliations:

  • Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States;Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States;Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States;Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States;Indiana University, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2012

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Abstract

Mobile web navigation requires highly-focused visual attention, which poses problems when it is inconvenient or distracting to continuously look at the screen (e.g., while walking). Aural interfaces support more eyes-free experiences, as users can primarily listen to the content and occasionally look at the device. Yet, designing aural information architectures remains a challenge. Specifically, back navigation is inefficient in the aural setting, as it forces users to listen to each previous page to retrieve the desired content. This paper introduces topic- and list-based back: two navigation strategies to enhance aural browsing. Both are manifest in Green-Savers Mobile (GSM), an aural mobile site. A study (N=29) compared both solutions to traditional back mechanisms. Our findings indicate that topic- and list-based back enable faster access to previous pages, improve the navigation experience and reduce perceived cognitive load. The proposed designs apply to a wide range of content-intensive, ubiquitous web systems.