In today's fast-paced world, staying connected is essential. But while audio notifications are a great tool for keeping users informed about incoming calls, texts and email messages, they're often intrusive and disruptive.

Recognizing this challenge, Carnegie Mellon University researchers Alexander Wang, Yi Fei Cheng and David Lindlbauer have created a solution called Music-Adaptive Ringtones for Blended Audio Notification Delivery (MARingBA).

MARingBA aims to address the shortcomings of conventional notification-delivery methods by blending ringtones into ongoing music playback. By integrating notification sounds into background music, MARingBA seeks to strike a balance between maintaining situational awareness and minimizing disruption.

MARingBA blends notification sounds with the background music users are already listening to, ensuring that users can receive notifications without being jolted out of their current focus. The technology explores a range of music-adaptive manipulation parameters to achieve this effect, including beat-matching, key-matching and timbre modifications.

In two studies, the researchers found that participants preferred music-adaptive audio notifications, citing reduced disruption and enhanced enjoyment compared to traditional methods.

MARingBA could be implemented in classrooms and lecture halls to deliver notifications to students and educators without interrupting the learning process. It could enhance the guest experience in hotels and resorts by streamlining communication between staff members, or be used in airports, train stations and bus terminals to deliver notifications to passengers and staff without disruptions.

As technology continues to evolve, research like MARingBA highlights the potential for creative solutions that improve user experience in everyday interactions.

The researchers, all members of the School of Computer Science's Human-Computer Interaction Institute, presented MARingBA at the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2024) earlier this month in Hawaii. The work earned a Best Paper Honorable Mention award at the conference.

Learn more about MARingBA and similar projects on CMU's Extended Reality Technology Center website.