Audio Tone
Also known as: Auditory Cue, Earcon
Non-speech audio signals used to convey information such as the presence, location, or status of objects or interface elements. In accessibility contexts, audio tones can supplement or replace verbal descriptions, similar to how screen readers like JAWS use different sound schemes to distinguish between web elements. Research with blind users has explored audio tones as alternatives to verbal assessment descriptors in privacy tools, though participants note they require a learning curve and have hardware limitations.
Category: assistive technology · user interface design · auditory accessibility
Related: Haptic Feedback · Multimodal Feedback · Screen Reader