Umwelt: Accessible Structured Editing of Multimodal Data Representations

المفاهيم الأساسية

The author presents Umwelt as an authoring environment for interactive multimodal data representations, de-centering the visual modality to treat visualization, sonification, and textual description equally.

الملخص

Umwelt introduces an innovative approach to creating multimodal data representations by prioritizing accessibility and equality among visual, textual, and sonified elements. The system allows users to fluidly shift between different modalities for a comprehensive understanding of datasets. Through an iterative co-design process involving blind researchers, Umwelt offers a structured editor interface that simplifies the specification process while maintaining flexibility and expressiveness in representation design.

الإحصائيات

Users specify fields and encodings in the accessible structured editor.
In a study with 5 blind/low-vision expert users, Umwelt's multimodal representations afforded complementary overview and detailed perspectives on datasets.
A screen reader user can use Umwelt's structured editor to specify data representations that include visualization, structured textual description, and sonification.
Umwelt maintains both field-oriented and encoding-oriented abstractions in its internal representation.
The Umwelt Viewer renders interactive multi-modal representations specified in the editor.

اقتباسات

الرؤى الأساسية المستخلصة من

Umwelt

by Jonathan Zon... في arxiv.org 03-04-2024

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.00106.pdf

استفسارات أعمق

How does Umwelt address the challenge of aligning or disjointing modalities in creating multimodal data representations?

In addressing the challenge of aligning or disjointing modalities, Umwelt prioritizes aligned visual and textual representations to ensure consistency between them. This decision was made to establish common ground between blind and sighted users, fulfilling a key design goal. By maintaining alignment between the visual and textual representations, Umwelt ensures that the textual structure can serve both as a means of conveying data textually and making the visualization accessible. However, this choice also implies that the modalities are more aligned than disjointed.
While Umwelt could allow authors to override field definitions in the textual modality to create disjoint representations, it was decided not to expose a Text tab in the editor for now. The focus on aligned representations helps fulfill design goals related to accessibility and ensuring a shared understanding across different user groups.

How does Umwelt prioritize accessibility while maintaining flexibility in representation design?

Umvelt prioritizes accessibility by providing an authoring environment specifically designed for screen readers, enabling blind and low-vision users to independently create multimodal data representations without relying on sighted assistance. The structured editor interface allows users to specify fields and encodings across multiple modalities such as visualization, structured textual description, and sonification.
To maintain flexibility in representation design while prioritizing accessibility, Umvelt uses a field-oriented specification approach where fields are top-level entities with encoding definitions nested within them. This approach allows for localized changes within each field definition used across multiple modalities or switching field encodings from one modality to another easily during exploratory prototyping. Additionally, by offering interactive multi-modal representations rendered in the viewer with default specifications generated based on dataset typings and keys using simple heuristics enables users to modify these defaults via an intuitive interface.
The combination of tailored interfaces for screen reader usability along with flexible editing capabilities empowers users with diverse needs to create customized multimodal data representations effectively while ensuring accessibility is at the forefront of design considerations.

What are the implications of using a field-oriented specification approach in designing Umwelt's authoring environment?

Using a field-oriented specification approach has several implications for designing Umvelt's authoring environment:

Deferred Commitment: Field-oriented specification allows users deferred commitment when specifying their desired end state since they can make localized changes within individual fields without needing deep knowledge about all aspects upfront.

Ease of Switching Modalities: Users can easily switch between different modalities during exploratory prototyping due to how fields are treated as top-level entities with encoding definitions nested within them.

Reduced Viscosity: The reduced viscosity resulting from this approach makes it easier for users to make changes without encountering difficulties or errors.

Increased Provisionality: Field-oriented specification enhances provisionality by facilitating ease-of-exploratory prototyping through progressive evaluation of specifications.

5 .Role-Inexpressiveness Challenge: However, there may be challenges related role-inexpressiveness when trying read complex relationships between entities affecting similar modality due fragmented information spread out over various sections rather than being grouped together under specific units like mark or traversal properties which might require additional verbosity or repetition introducing complexities into reading comprehension.
Overall ,the use 0f filed oriented Specification Approach offers significant benefits but also presents some challenges that need careful consideration during implementation phase..