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Re: Making graphs built from large datasets accessible - help requested

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From: McMorland, Gabriel
Date: Jun 18, 2013 10:26AM

I'm thinking about how to show both the forest and the trees to a blind decision maker. I think I'd want to get a feel for data trend using the sonarscape, and then make specific queries about data. Simple example: I want to listen to the stock market and also get a precise reading of the dow jones average for any point in the "data song".Yes, I also hope to see this conversation on the web aim list. I'm a blind person that went to school for urban planning and public policy, so I know firsthand how important it is to have access to data that informs strategic decisions.
It is a real barrier to my professional options if I can't access data trends that inform policy analysis and management strategy.



-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Catherine Roy
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 12:17 PM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Making graphs built from large datasets accessible - help requested

Hi John,

This is a great idea. As someone who works a lot with the open data community in Montreal, I have been struggling to offer solutions for this type of issue. This just might be the type of proposal that could help them get how accessibility for the blind can be part of their projects. Plus it has the added bonus of being cool. I hope you keep this discussion on list or at least somewhere public so we can all benefit from this discussion.

Best regards,


Catherine

--
Catherine Roy
http://www.catherine-roy.net




On 18/06/2013 11:35 AM, John Hicks wrote:
> The solution to this is "sonification" surely.
>
> Sonification has been around for a long time, but in terms of web
> accessibility it has not been really exploited.
>
> I'd love to be involved in something like that . In fact, I almost feel
> silly posting to the list instead of mailing you privately and proposing we
> start a company... but it is not new stuff, it is just the application of
> it that is new (and maybe not even).
>
> What is sonification? It is creating aural "soundscapes" of visual data.
>
>
> It would take some getting used to, but would be a great norm if it caught
> on (also providing mouse-driven extra dimensions on 2d graphics viewed by
> non visually impaired people)... thinking out loud here. ...
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonification
>
> Interesting, let's go further!
>
> Who's in?
>
> best wishes all,
>
> John
>
>
> On Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:07:12 -0400, Will Anderson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>> Good morning everyone,
>> My organization is building analytics software for government child
>> protective services to give day-by-day insight into the current level of
>> care being offered the children and families under the supervision of
> the
>> agency.
>>
>> While we have a mandate to be 508 compliant, we also want to do the
> right
>> thing and make the feature set accessible to all. The more people that
> can
>> understand these numbers, the better it furthers our non-profit mission.
>>
>> Our data set makes it hard to build accessible charts and we're not sure
> if
>> providing the raw data would be useful . Here are some of our
> challenges:
>> - # Data points: Some of our most useful graphs are built off roughly
>> 1,000 data points. That number is projected to increase as time
> passes
>> and
>> we get more data in our system.
>> - Dynamically generated: Our graphs change based on user data entry.
>> Right now, they change overnight. We're planning for the graphs to be
>> redrawn as close-to-realtime as possible though.
>> - User generated: We're building tools that allow our user base to
>> create their own graphs meaning we can't caption them ourselves.
>> - Our data often show long term trends with significant short term
>> variation: If we provided a table, how can we help the assistive tech
>> user
>> see the forrest for the trees?
>>
>> We've looked for resources on the web for this problem but the closest
>> resource we found is IBM's Accessible Analytics: Complex Charts, Large
>> Datasets, and Node
>>
> Diagrams<http://www-03.ibm.com/able/news/downloads/IBM_Accessible_Analytics_CSUN_2011.pdf>;
>> but
>> that explicitly calls out many of our issues in it's "next hard
> problems"
>> slide.
>>
>> Would anyone have any advice, guidance, or resources that might help us
>> out?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Will Anderson
>>
>> Product Manager @ Case Commons
>> >> >> > > >