[Blindmath] A Survay on Developing a Data Sonification Application

[Roopakshi Pathania]

HI ALL,

I’M TRYING TO GAGE THE INTEREST LEVEL FOR AN EXCEL ADD-IN THAT HELPS IN MONITORING DATA USING SONIFICATION.
FEEL FREE TO FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN ANSWERING THE QUESTIONS THAT I’VE PUT FORTH BELOW.

I’M WORKING WITH A RESEARCHER WHO HAS DONE SOME WORK IN THE AREA OF DATA SONIFICATION, AND IS INTERESTED IN DOING FURTHER DEVELOPMENT TO CUSTOMIZE SUCH AN ADD-IN TO PROVIDE RELEVANT INFORMATION TO MONITOR DYNAMIC DATA.

DATA SONIFICATION REFERS TO MAPPING OF THE DATA VALUES TO SOUND ATTRIBUTES IN ORDER TO COMPREHEND DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DATA.
MORE INFORMATION ON DATA SONIFICATION CAN BE FOUND AT
http://www.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de/ags/ami/datason/datason_e.html.

THE BASIC IDEA BEHIND THE ADD-IN FOR NOW IS RECEIVING CONSTANT DATA IN AN EXCEL SPREADSHEET AND PRODUCING SOUND ALERTS BASED ON THE CHANGES IN THE DATA THAT IS BEING UPDATED.
SINCE I’M INVOLVED IN FINANCIAL DATA EXPLORATION, A GOOD EXAMPLE IN THIS CONTEXT WOULD BE GENERATING A SOUND WHEN ANY FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT OR INDEX LIKE SP 500 CROSSES A KEY TECHNICAL INDICATOR VALUE THAT I HAVE CALCULATED IN THE SPREAD SHEET. ANOTHER EXAMPLE IS LISTENING TO THE INTRADAY MOVEMENTS OF DIFFERENT FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS 
I’M QUITE SURE THAT THE ADD-IN CAN BE ADAPTED FOR DATA GENERATED BY PERFORMING PHYSICS OR CHEMISTRY EXPERIMENTS.
ANALYZING STATIC DATA IS ALSO A POSSIBILITY THAT CAN BE INCORPORATED IN THE ADD-IN LATER ON.

THE 3 MAIN POSSIBLE DISADVANTAGES TO THIS APPLICATION ARE:
-	YOU NEED TO BE AN EXCEL POWER USER
-	UNDERSTANDING DATA SONIFICATION INVOLVES A BIT OF A LEARNING CURVE
-	DATA SONIFICATION MAY NOT BE ABLE TO PROVIDE THE SAME AMOUNT OF INFORMATION VISUALLY AVAILABLE

BASED ON MY ROUGH EXPLANATION AND THE LIMITATIONS GIVEN ABOVE, I HAVE THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS.

1.	ASSUMING THAT YOU WORK WITH DATA, OR WOULD BE GOING TO DEAL WITH THIS KIND OF DATA, DO YOU THINK THAT SUCH AN ADD-IN WOULD BE USEFUL?
2.	GIVEN THAT SUCH AN ADD-IN IS REASONABLY PRICED, WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO PAY FOR IT?
LET ME MAKE IT CLEAR THAT THE FINANCIAL GAIN, IF ANY, GOES ONLY TO THE RESEARCHER; I’M ONLY INTERESTED IN GETTING THIS ADD-IN DEVELOPED THAT WOULD HELP ME IN DATA MINING.

YOU CAN EMAIL ME OFF-LIST TO AVOID UNNECESSARY TRAFFIC.

Regards
Roopakshi from India

"Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous."
~ Leonardo da Vinci