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Re: Using Jquery or CSS to create accessible charts. Is this a real solution for accessibility?

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From: giandre
Date: May 11, 2011 1:57PM

PD,
That actually sounds interesting and brings another question. Is it enough to have only an accessible data table available along with the chart?
In other words, can I assume that by providing the table I am providing a "description"?

Thanks
Giovanni

----- Reply message -----
From: "Patrick Dunphy" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
Date: Wed, May 11, 2011 2:34 pm
Subject: [WebAIM] Using Jquery or CSS to create accessible charts. Is this a real solution for accessibility?
To: "WebAIM Discussion List" < <EMAIL REMOVED> >

For a recent project I worked on we required several pie charts on over 300
pages. Because these pages were generated by a highly customized CMS, HTML5
and dynamic capabilities weren't really an option.

We went low-tech & leveraged Google Charts to create these static images.
To keep the data in an accessible format, we reused the data to create the
charts to created accessible data tables which we then positioned offscreen
via CSS.

Probably not what you're looking for but I'd be interested to hear people's
thoughts on this usage.

Thanks!
-PD





On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 2:37 PM, Giovanni Duarte < <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:

> Hi,
> I am wondering if any of the solutions available for creating charts are
> REALLY accessible. I found a list of Jquery libraries (
>
> http://www.instantshift.com/2010/03/09/50-free-resources-for-charts-and-grap
> hs-solution/ ) and CSS libraries
> (http://sixrevisions.com/css/css_techniques_charting_data/ ).
>
> I have two questions about these solutions:
> 1. Are these truly accessible? Can a screen reader "understand" the chart?
> 2. Is an impaired user able to understand the chart by having the screen
> reader only? Do you think an alternative description is still necessary?
>
> What I am trying to determine is if we should invest time and resources to
> use this type of Jquery libraries or if we should only concentrate on the
> use of descriptions.
>
> Thanks,
> Giovanni
>
>