We invite you to participate in a user study to examine different auditory stimuli (i.e., sonification) to represent visual information (e.g., charts). An auditory representation can help people who are blind and low-vision understand visual information, creating opportunities for data science-related jobs. This representation can also make online data visualization, such as stock prices, weather reports, and dashboards, accessible.

Your participation will help us understand the strengths and weaknesses of different auditory stimuli. Please register below.

Compensation
You will receive a $25 Amazon Gift Card via email from the Pennsylvania State University within 2 weeks of your participation.

Eligibility
You are eligible to participate in the study if:
(a) you are at least 18 years old,
(b) you are blind or has low vision,
(c) you have no significant hearing impairments. For example, you should be able to hear
different musical notes, changes in pitch, ambient sounds like raindrops, and
(d) you are familiar with using web browsers such as Google Chrome.

We do not require participants to have the expertise or prior experience with auditory representations.

What will I be doing in the study?

The study will be conducted via ZOOM. You will use a web browser (Google Chrome) on your computer to listen to a set of audios. Each audio will represent an underlying dataset. We will provide you with the necessary training to interpret the dataset from the audio. You will then answer a few questions about the data (e.g., the minimum/maximum value, trend) in order to assess the effectiveness of a representation. In the end, we will ask you a few questions to understand your experience and collect feedback.

Each session will last around 90 minutes (1.5 hours).

For any question, please contact Naimul Hoque (nhoque@umd.edu) or Dr. Syed Billah
(sbillah@psu.edu).