WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Accessible flow charts or diagrams

for

From: Hoffman, Allen
Date: Sep 16, 2011 8:39AM


This should be a visio layer or functionality if you ask me.

Flow charts are a set of visual components, each with relationship
attributes. Such information should be encodable such that the name,
and attributes including navigation attributes are exposed to assistive
technologies.
Org charts are basically just hierarchical lists, so should be
presentable as such--but visual design sometimes gets in the way of
quick transcription. When visual design leads to unclear hierarchical
topology, the actual org chart is probably not effective in the first
place and should be reconsidered by the author--it is a basic function
of an org chart to impart such hierarchical relationships, and if it
doesn't do so, ...?

Just some food for thought.




-----Original Message-----
From: Giovanni Duarte [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ]
Sent: Friday, September 16, 2011 7:11 AM
To: 'WebAIM Discussion List'
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessible flow charts or diagrams

Thanks Ryan.
I need to find a more scalable process since we have many instructional
designers developing multiple charts.
Giovanni

-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Ryan E.
Benson
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 10:45 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Accessible flow charts or diagrams

Giovanni,

Nothing that I have seen makes fully accessible. I had to do this for a
project I was working on last week. The guidance i found was to label
each
node as step 1, etc. then if you hit a decision node, such as your end
of
first file, you decide one path and follow it to completion, then the
other.
However after your decision node you say if yes go to step xx, if no go
to
step yy. Your chart is kind of tricky so you will have to be careful.
For
the alt attribute, I would say something like "flow chart of how to
calculate members dues". Then since you can't rely on longdesc either a:
put
my description in plain text under the image, or b: a link to a page
with my
desc. Of course you can get fancy and hide it with CSS so only screen
readers would read it.

--
Ryan E. Benson



On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 8:03 PM, Giovanni Duarte < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I know I could provide an alternative text description to a flow chart

> but I would prefer to develop flow charts or diagrams that are already
accessible.
> For example, to put math equations on the web, I could take a
> screenshot and then describe it, but it is better to use MathML. Have
> any of you implemented this? We develop many of these charts,
> flowcharts, or diagrams and I would like to find something that can
> make then accessible. I understand Microsoft Visio is somewhat
> accessible (or I could be wrong) but I need a web based solution.
>
> I know the example I am providing below is not accessible and I
> apologize for it.
>
>
>
> http://www.logiccoder.com/Images/ClubMembers02.jpg
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Giovanni
>
>
>
>
>
>