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MultiVis II: Multimodal Tools to Allow Blind People to Create and
Manipulate Visualisations
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~stephen/grants/jobs.shtml
Understanding and manipulating information using visualisations such as
graphs, tables, bar charts and 3-dimensional (3D) plots is a very common
task for sighted people. The skills needed are learned early in school
and then used throughout life, for example, in analysing information,
creating presentations to show to others, or for managing home finances.
The basic skills needed for creating and manipulating graphs, for
example, are necessary for all parts of education and employment. Blind
people have very restricted access to information presented in these
visual ways. It is currently very hard for them to create, manipulate
and communicate visualisations such as graphs and tables. To allow blind
people to gain the skills needed for the workplace new technologies are
necessary to make visualisations usable. The aim of this project will be
to use multimodality to allow blind people to create and manipulate
visualisations using the senses of hearing and touch.
The novel aspect of EPSRC-funded MultiVis II project will be to use
multimodal techniques to allow blind users to create and manipulate
visualisations themselves in flexible and efficient ways. There are
almost no computer-based tools that a blind person could use him/herself
to create a visualisation. To facilitate creation we will investigate
haptic (force-feedback) and audio tools to allow users to create
visualisations interactively, adding and removing points and interacting
with the visualisation as they go. We will also investigate two-handed
interaction and haptic beacons to improve navigation within and control
of displays. The project will fund one PhD student and one postdoctoral
Research Fellow to work together to solve these problems.
Some of the key areas to be investigated are:
. Techniques to allow blind people to interactively create
visualisations themselves;
. A more natural, two-handed interaction with the visualisations;
. Mixed reality visualisation tool;
. External memory and navigation aids to help people discover, mark and
rediscover important data features;
. Collaborative visualisation tools to allow users to work together.
For full details on both posts see:
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~stephen/grants/jobs.shtml
This project builds upon the successful MultiVis project
(www.multivis.org) which looked at how visualisations such as graphs,
tables and 3D plots should be best presented to blind users. The website
for the MultiVis project gives much more detail on what we have done.
Our haptics webpage (http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~steven/haptics.htm) gives
more general information about the work we do with touch in the group.
Informal enquiries may be made to Stephen Brewster on +44 (0)141 330
4966, [log in to unmask]
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