MAIDR: Making Statistical Visualizations Accessible with Multimodal Data Representation

Abstract

This paper investigates new data exploration experiences that enable blind users to interact with statistical data visualizations$-$bar plots, heat maps, box plots, and scatter plots$-$leveraging multimodal data representations. In addition to sonification and textual descriptions that are commonly employed by existing accessible visualizations, our MAIDR (multimodal access and interactive data representation) system incorporates two additional modalities (braille and review) that offer complementary benefits. It also provides blind users with the autonomy and control to interactively access and understand data visualizations. In a user study involving 11 blind participants, we found the MAIDR system facilitated the accurate interpretation of statistical visualizations. Participants exhibited a range of strategies in combining multiple modalities, influenced by their past interactions and experiences with data visualizations. This work accentuates the overlooked potential of combining refreshable tactile representation with other modalities and elevates the discussion on the importance of user autonomy when designing accessible data visualizations.

arXiv commentAccepted to CHI 2024. Source code is available at https://github.com/xability/maidr

References in corpus (2)

• Data Navigator: An accessibility-centered data navigation toolkit
• Teaching Visual Accessibility in Introductory Data Science Classes with Multi-Modal Data Representations

Cited by in corpus (6)

• When Refreshable Tactile Displays Meet Conversational Agents: Investigating Accessible Data Presentation and Analysis with Touch and Speech
• ChartA11y: Designing Accessible Touch Experiences of Visualizations with Blind Smartphone Users
• Tactile Vega-Lite: Rapidly Prototyping Tactile Charts with Smart Defaults
• Explore, Listen, Inspect: Supporting Multimodal Interaction with 3D Surface and Point Data Visualizations
• Three Modalities, Two Design Probes, One Prototype, and No Vision: Experience-Based Co-Design of a Multi-modal 3D Data Visualization Tool
• Supporting Multimodal Data Interaction on Refreshable Tactile Displays: An Architecture to Combine Touch and Conversational AI