(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006-06)
Walker, Bruce N.; Godfrey, Mark T.; Orlosky, Jason E.; Bruce, Carrie; Sanford, Jon
Museums, science centers, zoos and aquaria are faced with educating and entertaining an increasingly diverse visitor population with varying physical and sensory needs. There are very few guidelines to help these facilities develop non-visual exhibit information, especially for dynamic exhibits. In an effort to make such informal learning environments (ILEs) more accessible to visually impaired visitors, the Georgia Tech Accessible Aquarium Project is studying auditory display and sonification methods for use in exhibit interpretation. The work presented here represents the initial tool building stage. We discuss the sonification system we are developing, and present some examples of the soundscape implementations that have been produced so far.