Throughout the history of human-computer interface development, one aspect has remained constant: output from computers has been almost entirely visual. A continued and increasing reliance on visual communication has had a disadvantageous effect on users who have visual disabilities. A visual interface is of no use to a user who is completely blind; communication must use one of the other senses, and hearing is an obvious candidate. A number of human-computer interfaces have been developed and adapted into an auditory form, based on the use of synthetic speech. However, for modern interfaces that use more complex displays, synthetic speech is not sufficient. One attempt to adapt such a mouse-based interface into an auditory form, based on musical tones and synthetic speech is described. This project involved the development of a word processor, called Soundtrack, with an auditory interface. Evaluations of this application suggest that the approach is viable, but that it is difficult to use and there are significant research questions still to be addressed.
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