Decoding Auditory Feedback: Enhancing Usability with Sound Insights

This study compares the impact of conventional auditory earcons and enhanced auditory earcons on the usability of handheld devices for different scanning methods in Warehouse Management Systems (WMSs). Warehouses deal with labor shortages and optimization challenges. There is a growing recognition of the significance of incorporating multimodality to craft immersive user experiences (UX) and to provide natural and robust interaction. While visual feedback is commonly used, audio feedback during QR code and RFID scanning is often limited to auditory earcons consisting of beeps. Our experimental research includes qualitative and quantitative measures exploring, verifying, and validating enhanced auditory earcons for WMSs. During the evaluation phase, four conditions are compared on task completion time, number of errors, perceived workload, annoyance, and perceived usability. Enhanced auditory feedback yielded lower perceived workload, was less frustrating and less annoying compared to conventional earcons. RFID scanning proved to be more efficient and effective, while QR code scanning was less mentally demanding. These results contribute to a better understanding of how usability in warehouse ict-artefacts could be improved, and could be extended to other domains such as retail or transport.