###### Abstract  
Students often utilize audio media during online or offline courses. However, lecture audio data are mostly unstructured and extensive, so they are more challenging in information browsing (i.e., chaining, linking, extraction, and evaluation of relevant information). Conventional time-level skip control is limited in auditory information browsing because it is hard to identify the current position and context. This paper presents Heart, which provides semantic-level skip control with auditory cues for auditory information browsing. With Heart, users can efficiently change the playback position in the paragraph-level. Furthermore, two auditory cues (positional cue and topical cue) help grasp the current playback and its context without additional visual support. We conducted a pilot study with the prototype of Heart, and the results show its feasibility and design implications for future research.  
auditory information browsing; lecture audio; auditory feedback +
Footnote †: journal:  
components in the behavioral model of information browsing: (1) linking and chaining and (2) extraction and evaluation. First, to facilitate users' linking and chaining data, it provides the _paragraph-level skip control_ that repositions the current audio playback based on semantic chunks. Such semantic-based audio playback control can help users find relevant contexts for linking and chaining, effectively more than existing _time-level skip controls_ (e.g., skip forward in 10 s). Second, to help users quickly grasp the context of the current playback and evaluate it without any visual supports, HearIt provides two _auditory cues: positional cue_ and _topical cue_. The positional cue is the paragraph number to offer the perception of the current position. The topical cue is a set of spoken keywords representing a paragraph and helps users determine whether to hear it more.  
We conducted a user study to evaluate the effectiveness of HearIt by the within-subject experiment. Twelve participants were asked to perform an auditory information browsing task that explores a lecture audio and points out the specific positions relevant to given contexts. The participants used three browsing methods to perform the task: (1) HearIt, (2) Partial-HearIt, which provides the same function as HearIt, except for topical cue, and (3) Baseline, without the paragraph-level skip and auditory cues. We statistically compared the efficiency (task completion time and accuracy) and the usability of the three methods. We also conducted a survey that contains open-ended questions about the experiences with the browsing methods.  
The results show that the proposed method is significantly efficient and effective in auditory information browsing without visual supports. The participants with HearIt mostly found the correct answer in a shorter time compared to those with Baseline. Most of the participants said that the paragraph-level skip is very efficient to reach the targeted position by ignoring irrelevant parts of the audio. Furthermore, the two auditory cues play a crucial role in enabling users to quickly grasp the current context. Our study addresses the needs of studying auditory information browsing and provides design implications for further research.