# Umwelt: Accessible Structured Editing of Multimodal Data Representations

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.00106 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.00106/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 29 Feb 2024.

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Three Modalities, Two Design Probes, One Prototype, and No Vision: Experience-Based Co-Design of a Multi-modal 3D Data Visualization Tool](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.09426/) (2026)
- [Cripping AI: Reimagining AI Through Lived Disability Experiences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.02080/) (2026)
- [Skeleton: Visual Authoring of Non-visual Data Experiences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.14579/) (2026)
- [Chart-Supported or Model-Supplied? Examining MLLM-Generated Claims for Accessible Visualization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.25021/) (2026)
- [From Plots to Words: Model-Aware Multimodal Explanations as a Foundation for Accessible, Non-Visual Interaction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.24910/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present Umwelt, an authoring environment for interactive multimodal data representations. In contrast to prior approaches, which center the visual modality, Umwelt treats visualization, sonification, and textual description as coequal representations: they are all derived from a shared abstract data model, such that no modality is prioritized over the others. To simplify specification, Umwelt evaluates a set of heuristics to generate default multimodal representations that express a dataset's functional relationships. To support smoothly moving between representations, Umwelt maintains a shared query predicated that is reified across all modalities -- for instance, navigating the textual description also highlights the visualization and filters the sonification. In a study with 5 blind / low-vision expert users, we found that Umwelt's multimodal representations afforded complementary overview and detailed perspectives on a dataset, allowing participants to fluidly shift between task- and representation-oriented ways of thinking.