Sonification of Data - A Usability Study

Sammanfattning: Sonification is a technique that allows people with visual impairment to listen to information that is normally available visually such as in graphs. Not all information is available for people with visual impairment and sonification is not a standard in all places where information is showed, so developing a sonification tool that provides an intuitive experience with easily interpreted data would help a lot of people. Specifically the thesis aims to answer the following research questions: 1. How should auditory characteristics be configured to enable smooth interpretation of sonified data? 2. How do you design a software prototype for someone with visual impairment? 3. In what ways can the end user interact with the sonified data through the prototype? Through a user-centered design process looking at existing sonification tools, performing usability tests and receiving user feedback a prototype was developed, the research questions were answered, and potential future work was identified. The findings indicate that correct usage of a screen-reader, providing context through reference values, using big ranges for the auditory characteristics of pitch and note velocity, and users being able to modify the note duration all help in interpreting sonified data. Sonified data can be interacted with by starting, stopping, choosing position, volume, and navigating with a screen-reader. The main guidelines in developing a prototype for people with visual impairment are: Keep the prototype minimalistic, enable keyboard navigation and interaction, and make it screen-reader compatible.