Multi-touch exploration and sonification of line segments

We present SoundLines, a mobile app designed to support children with visual impairments in exercising spatial exploration skills. This is achieved through multi-touch discovery of line segments on touchscreen, coupled with sonification feedback. SoundLines is implemented as a game in which a kitten is guided to find its mother cat by tracing the line connecting them on touchscreen. User study with 4 visually impaired adults assessed the app accessibility and the feasibility of multi-touch exploration, compared to single-touch. While there were limited differences between single-and multi-touch modalities, results indicate that proprioceptive sensing is predominant in multi-touch exploration and that audio feedback provides benefits mostly in single-touch exploration.