Abstract
The auditory signals of electric home appliances were investigated to find the temporal ringing patterns that were frequently employed. The results of analysis showed the following: (1) Some appliances use the same tones for operation sounds that notify the user that the appliance is turned on or off. Since this may cause confusion to users, it is better to assign a different sound to each operation. (2) Although some appliances use different temporal patterns for each of these operations, the pattern is not consistent among the products. It is desirable that the temporal patterns be standardized among the various products made by different manufacturers. (3) Most of the appliances employ different durations of tones for the two purposes, indicating malfunction or mishandling, and signaling the appliance has finished working. However, since a similar rate of ringing is adopted for both signals, the user can confuse them. A higher rate of ringing may be suitable for alarm sounds to avoid confusion.
