VISUALIZATION VS. SONIFICATION TO LEVEL A TABLE

Tiltification is a bullseye spirit level app that utilizes graphical and auditory display. In this paper I describe an experiment in which participants level a table using visualization and sonification. I found that using sonification participants can level a table significantly faster and with shorter trajectories, while the precision and the subjective workload are similar for the visualization and the sonification condition. The circumstance that the visual display is sometimes out of sight while adjusting leg lengths is certainly in favor of the sonification. This even counterbalances the fact that people have life long experience leveling furniture using a visual spirit level. Even though the experiment result may seem obvious to sonification researchers, they underline the effectiveness of sonification. Still, there is reason to believe that the results do not reflect the full potential of sonification.