A rising variety of instruments allow customers to make on-line information representations, like charts, which might be accessible for people who find themselves blind or have low imaginative and prescient. Nonetheless, most instruments require an present visible chart that may then be transformed into an accessible format.
This creates obstacles that stop blind and low-vision customers from constructing their very own customized information representations, and it will possibly restrict their means to discover and analyze essential info.
A crew of researchers from MIT and College Faculty London (UCL) desires to vary the best way folks take into consideration accessible information representations.
They created a software program system known as Umwelt (which suggests “atmosphere” in German) that may allow blind and low-vision customers to construct personalized, multimodal information representations while not having an preliminary visible chart.
Umwelt, an authoring atmosphere designed for screen-reader customers, incorporates an editor that permits somebody to add a dataset and create a personalized illustration, equivalent to a scatterplot, that may embrace three modalities: visualization, textual description, and sonification. Sonification includes changing information into nonspeech audio.
The system, which might signify quite a lot of information varieties, features a viewer that allows a blind or low-vision consumer to interactively discover an information illustration, seamlessly switching between every modality to work together with information differently.
The researchers carried out a examine with 5 knowledgeable screen-reader customers who discovered Umwelt to be helpful and simple to be taught. Along with providing an interface that empowered them to create information representations — one thing they stated was sorely missing — the customers stated Umwelt might facilitate communication between individuals who depend on completely different senses.
“We’ve got to keep in mind that blind and low-vision folks aren’t remoted. They exist in these contexts the place they wish to discuss to different folks about information,” says Jonathan Zong, {an electrical} engineering and pc science (EECS) graduate scholar and lead writer of a paper introducing Umwelt. “I’m hopeful that Umwelt helps shift the best way that researchers take into consideration accessible information evaluation. Enabling the complete participation of blind and low-vision folks in information evaluation includes seeing visualization as only one piece of this greater, multisensory puzzle.”
Becoming a member of Zong on the paper are fellow EECS graduate college students Isabella Pedraza Pineros and Mengzhu “Katie” Chen; Daniel Hajas, a UCL researcher who works with the World Incapacity Innovation Hub; and senior writer Arvind Satyanarayan, affiliate professor of pc science at MIT who leads the Visualization Group within the Laptop Science and Synthetic Intelligence Laboratory. The paper will likely be introduced on the ACM Convention on Human Elements in Computing.
De-centering visualization
The researchers beforehand developed interactive interfaces that present a richer expertise for display screen reader customers as they discover accessible information representations. Via that work, they realized most instruments for creating such representations contain changing present visible charts.
Aiming to decenter visible representations in information evaluation, Zong and Hajas, who misplaced his sight at age 16, started co-designing Umwelt greater than a yr in the past.
On the outset, they realized they would want to rethink tips on how to signify the identical information utilizing visible, auditory, and textual varieties.
“We needed to put a typical denominator behind the three modalities. By creating this new language for representations, and making the output and enter accessible, the entire is bigger than the sum of its components,” says Hajas.
To construct Umwelt, they first thought-about what is exclusive about the best way folks use every sense.
For example, a sighted consumer can see the general sample of a scatterplot and, on the identical time, transfer their eyes to concentrate on completely different information factors. However for somebody listening to a sonification, the expertise is linear since information are transformed into tones that have to be performed again one by one.
“In case you are solely fascinated with instantly translating visible options into nonvisual options, then you definately miss out on the distinctive strengths and weaknesses of every modality,” Zong provides.
They designed Umwelt to supply flexibility, enabling a consumer to modify between modalities simply when one would higher go well with their job at a given time.
To make use of the editor, one uploads a dataset to Umwelt, which employs heuristics to robotically creates default representations in every modality.
If the dataset accommodates inventory costs for firms, Umwelt would possibly generate a multiseries line chart, a textual construction that teams information by ticker image and date, and a sonification that makes use of tone size to signify the worth for every date, organized by ticker image.
The default heuristics are supposed to assist the consumer get began.
“In any sort of artistic instrument, you could have a blank-slate impact the place it’s onerous to know tips on how to start. That’s compounded in a multimodal instrument as a result of it’s a must to specify issues in three completely different representations,” Zong says.
The editor hyperlinks interactions throughout modalities, so if a consumer adjustments the textual description, that info is adjusted within the corresponding sonification. Somebody might make the most of the editor to construct a multimodal illustration, swap to the viewer for an preliminary exploration, then return to the editor to make changes.
Serving to customers talk about information
To check Umwelt, they created a various set of multimodal representations, from scatterplots to multiview charts, to make sure the system might successfully signify completely different information varieties. Then they put the instrument within the fingers of 5 knowledgeable display screen reader customers.
Research contributors principally discovered Umwelt to be helpful for creating, exploring, and discussing information representations. One consumer stated Umwelt was like an “enabler” that decreased the time it took them to research information. The customers agreed that Umwelt might assist them talk about information extra simply with sighted colleagues.
Transferring ahead, the researchers plan to create an open-source model of Umwelt that others can construct upon. In addition they wish to combine tactile sensing into the software program system as an extra modality, enabling using instruments like refreshable tactile graphics shows.
“Along with its influence on finish customers, I hope that Umwelt could be a platform for asking scientific questions round how folks use and understand multimodal representations, and the way we will enhance the design past this preliminary step,” says Zong.
This work was supported, partly, by the Nationwide Science Basis and the MIT Morningside Academy for Design Fellowship.