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Re: Accesscibility of data visualizations

for

From: Chaals McCathie Nevile
Date: Feb 4, 2016 4:52AM

On Thu, 04 Feb 2016 10:49:42 +0100, John Hicks < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> Hello
>
> This continues to be a favourite subject of mine though so far I have not
> found the time to get very far.
>
> No screen reader incorporates "sonification" yet ... though it would
> seem to be the best solution (albeit perhaps too complicated).

There are some good things that sonification can add - for people who are
less tone-deaf than me at least.

There's quite a lot we could do in things like automatic SVG generation
libraries. I've been slowly trying to work through some test cases to
figure out how we can make accessible SVG in the first place*, with most
of what I am doing ending up at
https://github.com/SVG-access-W3CG/use-case-examples - so others can play
around and propose changes as well as just look at my work.

My hope is that we can come up with some useful ways to do things today -
e.g. I think of
http://svg-access-w3cg.github.io/use-case-examples/rectrack2-notes.html as
being an improvement on what most images offer - and demonstrate that
fixing some high-priority browser bugs would make a big difference...
hello Mozilla, please implement tabindex. And Safari, following internal
links. And everyone, access to structured title elements, or *any* desc
element…

And use what I have found to get people like chartist.js to make more
accessible data visualisation by default.

There's a lot that can be done already. If only people did it…

cheers

> Here is an example of the essence of sonification :
>
> http://sonify.psych.gatech.edu/research/sonification_sandbox/
>
> John
>
>
>
>
> 2016-02-04 3:08 GMT+01:00 Sean Murphy < <EMAIL REMOVED> >:
>
>> All charts are graphics. Excel is unique because Jaws for Windows uses
>> the
>> script language to interrogate the application script language
>> environment
>> (DOM). Thus it can extract the required information to tell the person
>> that
>> the Pie has 10% for x, 20% for y and 70% for Z as an example.
>>
>> If an application doesn't provide this capability. Then it more then
>> likely not work. Thus you have to rely on someone converting the
>> diagram
>> (chart) into a textual description diagram or using tactual diagram. The
>> problem with both methods:
>>
>>
>> 1. If textual described diagram, someone has to convert the
>> information.
>> 2. Tactual diagram can be produced on a graphic braille embosser
>> (printer). If the chart/diagram contains a lot of visual elements to
>> beautify the chart. Then this becomes noise to the braille reader.
>> 3. the finger cannot read information at the same resolution as your
>> eye's can.
>> 4. If a person just sends the diagram to the graphic braille embosser
>> without any modifications. Then you get what ever it is at what ever
>> level
>> of quality. I have done this in the past and found it not very useful
>> without someone with sight converting it into a easier form.
>>
>>
>> It isn't impossible to do this via program means. The software or
>> presented information on the web just has to have the code developed in
>> a
>> means where it can understand the raw data or objects used for the chart
>> and present it in a manner that a person can understand. In other words,
>> the program could translate the chart for the person. Example of a
>> converted org chart:
>>
>> CEO
>> —> CTO
>> —>—> I.T director
>> —>—> Development direct
>> —> CFO
>> —>—> Account team
>> —>—> purchase team
>> —>HR
>> —>—> training
>> —>—> talent retention
>> —> Sales
>> —>—> West USA
>> —>—> East USA
>> —>—> north USA
>> —>—> Southern USa
>> —>—> Canada
>> —>—> South America
>>
>>
>> Sean
>>
>> > On 4 Feb 2016, at 10:26 am, Angela French < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
>> >
>> > I was wondering how screen readers make sense of these charts (reads
>> them aloud). Some are so complex they challenged the sighted!
>> >
>> > Angela
>> >
>> >