[BlindRUG] Invitation to Participate in Research on Improving Accessibility of Data Visualization with, by, and for Blind and Low-Vision People

[Seo, JooYoung]

Dear Blind R Users,

I am JooYoung Seo, a blind information and learning scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

My research team has developed a prototype multimodal access and interactive data representation system that can display data patterns in sonification, braille, and text in your preferred browsers. If this research is successful, I am going to integrate this module into some open-source popular data visualization packages, such as R ggplot2 and Python matplotlib going forward for blind data scientists to independently explore their data in an accessible fashion.

With the permission of Lou Ann Blake, the NFB Director of Research Programs, I am posting this announcement to recruit some blind people who are interested in testing this system as part of user study research. Please kindly find the detailed information below.

A research team composed of blind and sighted scholars at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is conducting user studies on blind individuals’ interactions with the accessible data visualization system that we developed. In this context, an individual’s level of visual impairment is based on The U.S. legal definition of blindness: visual acuity of not greater than 20/200 in the better eye with correction or a field not subtending an angle greater than 20 degrees.
The expected value of this study is that we will get a better sense of the following topics based on blind individuals’ experiences:

  *   The better multi-representation and accessible combinations of sonification, text, and braille patterns for statistical graphs, such as bar plot, heatmap, boxplot, and scatter plot;
  *   Learnability and usability of the accessible visualization system that our research team developed
  *   Future directions towards more accessible data visualization system and data science education.
Participants’ personal information and data such as name and email collected from the user studies will be systematically removed from the final results.
Participants will receive a $30 Amazon gift card upon completing the up to one-hour and a half user study. Eligible participants for the online interview are those who must:

  *   be age 18 or older;
  *   meet the U.S. legal definition of blindness (i.e., visual acuity of not greater than 20/200 in the better eye with correction or a field not subtending an angle greater than 20 degrees);
  *   be everyday screen reader users such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, ORCA, etc.;
  *   have access to either a refreshable braille display or braille notetaker that can be connected to your computer and screen reader.;
  *   not currently located in China (this is because of the current research protocol restriction)
If you are interested in participating, please fill out this Google form https://forms.gle/roRmM4Z8v7kaX8Rb7 If you encounter any questions, feel free to contact our team via email: yilinx2 at illinois.edu<mailto:yilinx2 at illinois.edu>. Please pass on this information to other suitable candidates who you think may be interested.
Sincerely,
JooYoung Seo (PI), Yilin Xia, and Yu Jun Yam

--------------------
JooYoung Seo, Ph.D. (he/him/his)
Assistant Professor, School of Information Sciences
Faculty Affiliate, National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Faculty Affiliate, Illinois Informatics Institute
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Room 5158, 614 E. Daniel St.
Champaign, IL 61820
(217) 333-2671 | jseo1005 at illinois.edu<mailto:jseo1005 at illinois.edu>
ischool.illinois.edu/people/jooyoung-seo<https://ischool.illinois.edu/people/jooyoung-seo>

[University of Illinois logo]<http://illinois.edu/>

Under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act any written communication to or from university employees regarding university business is a public record and may be subject to public disclosure.


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