Barry Arons

Abstract

Listening to a speech recording is much more difficult than visually scanning a document because of the transient and temporal nature of audio. Audio recordings capture the richness of speech, yet it is difficult to directly browse the stored information. This article describes techniques for structuring, filtering, and presenting recorded speech, allowing a user to navigate and interactively find information in the audio domain. This article describes the SpeechSkimmer system for interactively skimming speech recordings. SpeechSkimmer uses speech-processing techniques to allow a user to hear recorded sounds quickly, and at several levels of detail. User interaction, through a manual input device, provides continuous real-time control of the speed and detail level of the audio presentation. SpeechSkimmer reduces the time needed to listen by incorporating time-compressed speech, pause shortening, automatic emphasis detection, and nonspeech audio feedback. This article also presents a multilevel structural approach to auditory skimming and user interface techniques for interacting with recorded speech. An observational usability test of SpeechSkimmer is discussed, as well as a redesign and reimplementation of the user interface based on the results of this usability test.