Description
Scientific data has tremendous potential to engage the public in environmental issues, but for communication to be successful, the datasets must be presented in ways that are accessible to a wide variety of non-expert public users. Visual presentations of data aid audiences in identifying trends and making inferences but can require significant graph literacy skills to interpret correctly and are especially difficult for learners with print-related disabilities or who identify as blind or low vision. This presentation will describe our research developing multimodal data representations – visual, auditory, and tactile displays – to create interactive experiences that teach the public about oceanographic concepts. Building off our past work designing auditory displays of ocean data, we are exploring how to design tangible interactions and auditory feedback to engage learners with local coastal issues.
