Touchable Sound: Exploring Spatial Ocean Data Through Tangible and Auditory Displays

Museum exhibits often rely on visualizations or graphics to communicate scientific data to the general public. These visual representations render the benefits of these exhibits inaccessible to blind and low vision (BLV) learners. While both tactile and auditory representations of data can serve as accessible alternatives to visualizations for BLV learners, there is little work exploring how the unique affordances and drawbacks of these modalities affect learning about data in informal learning environments (ILEs). Our work seeks to further this understanding through the design and evaluation of an accessible and interactive display for learning about ocean data. We prototyped three versions of our display, each with a different modality for representing habitat data (sound, texture, sound and texture). By prototyping multiple versions, we investigate how auditory and tactile feedback can be leveraged to support informal learning about scientific data.