Audial Support for Visual Dense Data Display

Abstract: This report presents an application developed for evaluating the possible benefits of using audial support in a visualization application. A hypothesis is presented where the idea is that sonification might help users perceive densities in data-sets with large amounts of data points. The application presents a scatterplot and a parallel coordinates plot. To both plots audial support is added where the amplitude of the sound is used for representing the amount of points in different areas of the plots. The method is evaluated through user studies where ability to find maximum points, finding equal densities and appreciation of the sounds is investigated. Quantitative and qualitative results show improvements when finding maximum points in tight clusters both in parallel coordinates and scatter plots. This is a first step when investigating this area of visualization spurring further research.