Glossary

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Algebra Earcon(also: Mathematical Earcon, Math Sound)

A non-speech auditory cue designed to represent the structural components of mathematical expressions, allowing blind users to perceive the overall shape and nesting of an expression without relying solely on sequential speech output. Algebra earcons use variations in rhythm,…

Audio CAPTCHA(also: Audio HIP, Audio Human Interaction Proof)

An auditory alternative to visual CAPTCHAs, typically presenting distorted spoken letters, numbers, or words that users must transcribe. While intended as an accessible alternative for blind users, research shows audio CAPTCHAs have success rates of only 43-50% for screen reader…

Audio Cue(also: Auditory Cue, Sound Cue, Earcon)

A non-speech sound used to convey information in an interface. In accessible programming environments, audio cues represent code structures, syntax errors, or navigation landmarks—for example, a door-opening sound for an "if" statement or distinct tones for different indentation…

Audio Cues(also: Earcons, Auditory Icons, Sound Cues)

Non-speech sounds used in software interfaces to convey information, status changes, or events that would otherwise be communicated only visually. In accessible development environments, audio cues can indicate errors, warnings, code changes, and navigation events, providing…

Audio Icon(also: Auditory Icon, Earcon)

A non-speech sound used in a user interface to represent an object, action, or event, analogous to how visual icons represent concepts graphically. Audio icons use everyday sounds that have a natural association with what they represent (e.g., a crumpling sound for deleting a…

Audio-Based Interface(also: Audio Interface, Auditory Interface)

A computer interface that uses sound as the primary means of conveying information and supporting interaction, rather than visual display. Audio-based interfaces are essential for blind and visually impaired users and may employ speech output, environmental sounds, musical…

Audio-Based Navigation(also: Audio Navigation, Auditory Navigation)

A navigation approach that uses audio output — typically synthesised speech, spatial audio cues, or sonification — as the primary means of providing wayfinding information to users. Audio-based navigation systems are particularly important for blind and visually impaired people,…

Auditory Feedback(also: Audio Feedback, Auditory Display)

The use of sound — including tones, sound effects, earcons, and speech — to convey information about system states, user actions, or environmental changes. In accessibility, auditory feedback serves as a non-visual channel for communicating information that is typically…

Auditory Menu(also: Audio Menu, Speaking Menu)

A user interface menu that conveys its content and structure through audio rather than visual display. Auditory menus typically use text-to-speech to read menu item names and may incorporate non-speech sounds such as earcons, spearcons, or tones to provide contextual information…

Auditory Scrollbar(also: Audio Scrollbar, Sonic Scrollbar)

A non-speech audio cue that conveys a user's position within a list or menu, functioning as an auditory analogue to a visual scrollbar. Auditory scrollbars use variations in pitch, tone patterns, or grouped sounds to communicate contextual information such as how many items are…

Auditory User Interface(also: AUI, Audio User Interface)

A user interface that relies primarily on audio output — including synthesised speech, earcons, auditory icons, and sonification — to convey information and enable interaction. Auditory user interfaces are essential for users who are blind or have low vision, and they can…

Aural Rendering(also: Auralization, Audio Rendering)

The process of converting visual or textual information into a spoken or auditory representation. In programming accessibility, aural rendering transforms source code into speech output that conveys not just the text content but also structural and syntactic information — such…

Concurrent speech interface(also: Simultaneous speech, Parallel audio streams)

An interaction paradigm that presents multiple speech audio streams simultaneously, spatially separated using techniques like head-related transfer functions, to enable users to scan or monitor several information items in parallel rather than listening to them sequentially.…

EyeMusic

A visual-to-auditory sensory substitution device that converts images into sound, enabling people who are blind to perceive visual information including shape, location, and color. EyeMusic uses a left-to-right sweep algorithm where horizontal position maps to time, vertical…

Hearcon(also: 3D Earcon)

An extension of the earcon concept that adds three-dimensional spatial audio properties to non-speech audio cues used in computer interfaces. While earcons are abstract synthesized sounds that represent interface events or objects, hearcons position these sounds in 3D space…

Non-Speech Audio(also: Non-Verbal Audio, Non-Speech Sound)

Auditory output that conveys information through sounds other than spoken words — for example tones, clicks, earcons, auditory icons, musical motifs, or vowel-like timbres. Non-speech audio is widely used in accessibility because it can be faster and less cognitively demanding…

Nonspeech Audio(also: Non-Speech Sounds, Auditory Cues)

Audio feedback in user interfaces that conveys information through sounds other than synthesized or recorded speech, including earcons (abstract musical motifs), auditory icons (realistic sounds representing actions or objects), and sonification (data mapped to sound…

Pitch Polarity(also: Pitch Mapping Direction)

The direction in which pitch changes correspond to navigation direction in an auditory interface — specifically, whether pitch increases (ascending polarity) or decreases (descending polarity) as a user scrolls downward through a list or menu. Pitch polarity is a design variable…

Reference Sonification(also: Audio reference tone, Origin tone)

A sonification design pattern in which a fixed, recognisable audio tone represents a known landmark - typically the origin of a coordinate system or another anchor point - and can be re-played on demand so that a user exploring a non-visual data space can re-orient themselves…

Spatial Audio(also: 3D Audio, Spatialised Sound, Binaural Audio)

Audio technology that creates the perception of sound coming from specific locations in three-dimensional space around the listener, using techniques such as head-related transfer functions (HRTFs), binaural rendering, and ambisonics. In accessibility, spatial audio can convey…

Spatialized Audio(also: 3D Audio, Spatial Sound, Immersive Audio)

Spatialized audio is a technology that creates the perception of sound coming from specific locations in three-dimensional space around the listener, using techniques such as head-related transfer functions (HRTFs) and binaural rendering. In accessibility, spatialized audio is…

Spatialized Sound(also: Spatial Audio, 3D Audio, Spatialized Audio)

Audio that is rendered with positional information so that it appears to originate from a specific location in three-dimensional space around the listener. Spatialized sound uses techniques like head-related transfer functions (HRTFs), interaural time differences, and interaural…

Spearcon

A spearcon is a type of auditory icon created by compressing a spoken phrase until it becomes a very brief, distinctive audio cue. Unlike earcons, which use abstract musical sounds, spearcons retain a connection to the original speech, making them easier to learn and associate…

Speech Dialogue Design(also: Speech Interface Design, Auditory Dialogue Design)

The practice of designing the structure, content, ordering, and delivery of information presented through synthetic speech in computer interfaces. Effective speech dialogue design considers psycholinguistic principles such as the recency effect (items heard last are best…

Spindex(also: Speech Index)

An auditory navigation technique that uses the first letter of each word (spoken or synthesized) as an index to speed up list navigation. When scrolling through alphabetically ordered lists like contacts, a spindex plays the first letter of each item, allowing users to quickly…

Stereo Panning(also: Audio Panning, Pan)

The technique of distributing a mono sound signal between the left and right channels of a stereo output to create the perception that the sound originates from a specific horizontal position in space. A fully left-panned sound plays only in the left ear, a centered sound plays…

Structured Audio(also: Structured Digital Audio)

Structured audio refers to digital audio content that has been encoded with hierarchical markers and metadata, allowing non-sequential access to specific segments such as chapters, sections, paragraphs, and phrases. Unlike linear audio recordings (such as traditional audio…

Synthesized Speech(also: Synthetic Speech, Speech Synthesis, TTS Output)

Computer-generated speech produced by text-to-speech (TTS) engines that convert written text into spoken audio output. Synthesized speech is the primary means by which screen readers convey on-screen content to blind and visually impaired users. While modern TTS voices have…

The vOICe(also: vOICe)

One of the earliest and most widely studied visual-to-auditory sensory substitution devices, developed by Peter Meijer in 1992. The vOICe converts camera images into sound by scanning left to right, mapping horizontal position to time, vertical position to audio frequency…

Unit Selection Synthesis(also: Concatenative Unit Selection, Unit Selection TTS)

A text-to-speech synthesis approach that generates speech by selecting and concatenating variable-length segments of pre-recorded human speech from a large database to match the input text. Unit selection synthesizers generally produce more natural-sounding speech than…

Virtual Acoustic Environment(also: Audio Virtual Environment, Acoustic Virtual Environment)

A computer-generated environment that uses audio as the primary medium for representing spaces, objects, and interactions, enabling users to navigate and interact with a virtual world through sound. Virtual acoustic environments are particularly valuable for blind users,…

Voice Augmentation(also: Audio Augmentation, Voice-Based Augmentation)

A technique for enhancing user interfaces by adding spoken audio feedback to supplement visual information on screen. Voice augmentation provides contextual support through spoken confirmations of user input, notifications of errors or status changes, suggestions for next…

Web Speech API(also: Web Speech, SpeechSynthesis API)

A browser-native JavaScript API that provides speech recognition and speech synthesis capabilities directly within web applications. The Web Speech API enables developers to add text-to-speech and voice recognition features without requiring users to install screen reader…

33 results.