Line Harp: Importance-Driven Sonification for Dense Line Charts

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Egil Bru, Thomas Trautner, Stefan Bruckner

 Room: 104

2023-10-26T03:27:00ZGMT-0600Change your timezone on the schedule page
2023-10-26T03:27:00Z

Exemplar figure, described by caption below — Line Harp is an interactive sonification approach for dense line charts. We utilize the metaphor of a string instrument, where individual line segments can be ”plucked”. We propose an importance-driven approach which encodes the directionality of line segments using frequency and dynamically scales amplitude for improved density perception, and also provide additional sonified lenses for enhanced data exploration.

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Keywords

Human-centered computing—Visualization—Visualization application domains—Information visualization; Human-centered computing—Human computer interaction (HCI)—Interaction techniques—Auditory feedback; Human-centered computing—Accessibility—Accessibility systems and tools

Abstract

Accessibility in visualization is an important yet challenging topic. Sonification, in particular, is a valuable yet underutilized technique that can enhance accessibility for people with low vision. However, the lower bandwidth of the auditory channel makes it difficult to fully convey dense visualizations. For this reason, interactivity is key in making full use of its potential. In this paper, we present a novel approach for the sonification of dense line charts. We utilize the metaphor of a string instrument, where individual line segments can be "plucked". We propose an importance-driven approach which encodes the directionality of line segments using frequency and dynamically scales amplitude for improved density perception. We discuss the potential of our approach based on a set of examples.