A Method for Presenting UML Class Diagrams with Audio for Blind and Visually Impaired Students

Unified Modeling Language class diagrams convey relationships between code units in Object-Oriented software projects. They are commonly used in industry and extensively used in undergraduate computer science courses to convey common software engineering concepts. Unfortunately, class diagrams are a purely visual language - rendering them useless for programmers with visual impairments or blindness. This work addresses that deficiency with a novel auditory method that conveys relationship properties between classes using sonification techniques. Study results show that users can quickly and reliably perceive the presented relationships. The study was a proof-of-concept, with future work leveraging this mechanism to create a complete class diagramming tool accessible to students who are either blind or visually impaired.