MARingBA: Enhancing Audible Alerts for Modern Connectivity

Researchers: Alexander Wang, Yi Fei Cheng, and David Lindlbauer

In today's fast-paced world, staying connected is essential. Whether it's receiving important calls, texts, or emails, audio notifications serve as a tool for keeping users informed throughout their daily activities. However, traditional notification methods, such as loud ringtones, often prove intrusive, causing disruption to the flow of one's experience. Recognizing this challenge, researchers Alexander Wang, Yi Fei Cheng, and David Lindlbauer present a solution called MARingBA.

Published at ACM CHI 2024, MARingBA aims to address the shortcomings of conventional notification delivery methods by blending ringtones into ongoing music playback. This approach acknowledges the adoption of music consumption in daily life and leverages it to adjust the noticeability of notifications. By integrating notification sounds into the background music, MARingBA seeks to strike a balance between maintaining situational awareness and minimizing disruption.

MARingBA blends notification sounds with the background music users are already listening to, ensuring that users can receive notifications without being jolted out of their current focus. This technology explores a range of music-adaptive manipulation parameters to achieve this effect, including beat matching, key matching, and timbre modifications.

In two studies, Wang et al. confirmed that participants expressed a preference for music-adaptive audio notifications, citing reduced disruption and enhanced enjoyment compared to traditional methods.

Potential Market Applications: 

• Education Sector: MARingBA could be implemented in classrooms and lecture halls to deliver notifications to students and educators without interrupting the learning process. 
• Hospitality Industry: MARingBA can enhance the guest experience in hotels and resorts by streamlining communication between staff members.
• Public Transportation: MARingBA can be implemented in airports, train stations, and bus terminals to deliver notifications to passengers and staff members without causing disruptions.

In summary, MARingBA represents an advancement in notification delivery, offering a new approach that integrates users' music listening habits. MARingBA was able to find a balance between providing timely alerts while preserving the user's auditory experience. As technology continues to evolve, research like MARingBA highlights the potential for creative solutions that aid in the user experience throughout everyday interactions.

The publication, video, and audio samples can be found on this website: https://augmented-perception.org/publications/2024-maringba.html

 Researchers: Alexander Wang, Yi Fei Cheng, and David Lindlbauer