Evaluation of Audio Response Time Delay Requirements for Digitized Audio

Abstract

As digital voice data is increasingly replacing analog in system applications, user interface requirements supporting this technology must be established. This experiment was conducted to determine whether system response time affected a user's ability to control movement of recorded speech while keying in a verbatim report of the speech content. Experienced subjects performed a transcription task under four different response times. Upon completion of the task, the subject ordered the response times from shortest to longest and rank-ordered their preferences for response delay times. Performance data was collected to discover if response time differences affected performance. Subjects were unable to identify the response time delays correctly; and, based on the preference rankings, the subjects were most satisfied with a response time delay range between 100 ms and 150 ms and least satisfied with a response time delay of 250 ms. Subjects stated that with the longest and shortest response time delays they had trouble positioning in the audio. Response time delays did not affect subject performance, although other significant results were found.