Observations on an Interdisciplinary Design Process Using a Sonification Framework

In sonification of scientific data, designers know very little about the domain science and domain scientists are not familiar with the sonification methodology. The knowledge about the domain science is not given, but evolved during the problem-solving process. We discuss design challenges in auditory display design regarding user-centerdness and introduce an approach to involve domain scientists throughout a sonification design. We explore this within a workshop in which sonification experts, domain experts, and programmers worked together to better understand and solve problems collaboratively. The sonification framework that is used during the workshops is briefly described and the workshop process and how each group worked together during the workshop sessions is examined. Participants worked on pre-defined and exploratory tasks to sonify climate data. Resulting sonification prototypes and workshop sessions are documented on a wiki and could be used as a starting point for future sonification procedures. Furthermore, the participants grasped each others’ domains; climate scientists especially became more open to use auditory display and sonification as a tool in their data mining tasks.