Beyond visualization: on using sonification methods to make business processes more accessible to users

Abstract

Visualization of business process models with large numbers of process activities and running instances in different execution states show various limitations. Hence, using sonification methods becomes a promising idea to enable users to gain insight into process information that cannot be conveyed by using purely visual means. This extended abstract tries to envision a multi-modal combination of sonification and visualization methods in order to represent business processes in all phases of the process life cycle. At first existing visualization and sonification methods are presented and analyzed in terms of their potential suitability for representations of process data. The findings of this analysis result in a more fine-grained analysis of sonification techniques (extended and combined) along the specific characteristics of selected scenarios along the process life cycle. Overall, this extended abstract aims at breaking new ground for designing and applying multi-modal approaches for making process information more accessible to users.