The Audible Universe Workshop: an Interdisciplinary Approach to the Design and Evaluation of Tools for Astronomical Data Sonification

Even if images of astrophysical objects are used by professional astronomers for research and by the public for outreach, we are all basically blind to the Universe. Challenging the idea that we should always use visualisations, there has been a growing interest in converting astronomical phenomena into sound, motivated by: making astronomy more accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired (BVI); creating more engaging educational resources, and enabling a deeper understanding of complex astronomical data. The Audible Universe (AU) workshop focuses on consolidating what has been done in the field so far and identifying the areas where most effort is required to make progress over the coming years. The second edition of the AU workshop (AU2) took place in 2022, and brought together 50 experts, among whom astronomers interested in sonification, sound designers, experts in sound perception and educators. This community started a multi-disciplinary discussion about how to properly design and evaluate sonification tools. In this methodological and position paper, we present and discuss the main activities of the AU2 workshop, with a particular focus on activities concerned with the development of collaborative design processes, and the implementation of methods for evaluation. While this workshop was dedicated to fostering exchanges between the sonification community and astronomers, the structure and the methods used within the workshop are transferable to other application areas, and a contribution to the effort to develop interdisciplinary strategies for the development of the field of sonification. QC 20230705