Towards Music-Aware Virtual Assistants
Abstract
We propose a system for modifying spoken notifications in a manner that is sensitive to the music a user is listening to. Spoken notifications provide convenient access to rich information without the need for a screen. Virtual assistants see prevalent use in hands-free settings such as driving or exercising, activities where users also regularly enjoy listening to music. In such settings, virtual assistants will temporarily mute a user’s music to improve intelligibility. However, users may perceive these interruptions as intrusive, negatively impacting their music-listening experience. To address this challenge, we propose the concept of music-aware virtual assistants, where speech notifications are modified to resemble a voice singing in harmony with the user’s music. We contribute a system that processes user music and notification text to produce a blended mix, replacing original song lyrics with the notification content. In a user study comparing musical assistants to standard virtual assistants, participants expressed that musical assistants fit better with music, reduced intrusiveness, and provided a more delightful listening experience overall.
Citation
@inproceedings{2024wangtowards,
author = {Wang, Alexander and Lindlbauer, David and Donahue, Chris},
title = {Towards Music-Aware Virtual Assistants},
year = {2024},
isbn = {9798400706288},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3654777.3676416},
doi = {10.1145/3654777.3676416},
abstract = {We propose a system for modifying spoken notifications in a manner that is sensitive to the music a user is listening to. Spoken notifications provide convenient access to rich information without the need for a screen. Virtual assistants see prevalent use in hands-free settings such as driving or exercising, activities where users also regularly enjoy listening to music. In such settings, virtual assistants will temporarily mute a user’s music to improve intelligibility. However, users may perceive these interruptions as intrusive, negatively impacting their music-listening experience. To address this challenge, we propose the concept of music-aware virtual assistants, where speech notifications are modified to resemble a voice singing in harmony with the user’s music. We contribute a system that processes user music and notification text to produce a blended mix, replacing original song lyrics with the notification content. In a user study comparing musical assistants to standard virtual assistants, participants expressed that musical assistants fit better with music, reduced intrusiveness, and provided a more delightful listening experience overall.},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology},
articleno = {127},
numpages = {14},
keywords = {Audio, Interruptions, Machine Learning, Music, Notification, Speech, Virtual Assistants},
location = {Pittsburgh, PA, USA},
series = {UIST '24}
}