Designing Accessible Visualizations
Let’s work together to create better visualizations for everyone.
Visualizations represent data in a way that is easy to understand. It gives viewers a snapshot of the data’s story and an opportunity to form their own understanding of the data. It is an ideal way to consolidate lists of meaningless numbers into interesting patterns and visuals, thus making it easier for viewers to comprehend.
However, a visualization can quickly become frustrating if it is not easy to read. Multiple lines could merge to create a crisscrossed mess, too much data could overwhelm the user, or colors may not add real insight into the visualization.
While incomprehensible visualizations can be a pain, inaccessible ones are worse.
This is, however, a very common problem for people with disabilities (PWD). Visualizations that rely heavily on the use of color could exclude people who are color blind, while visualizations displayed on 2D surfaces could exclude people who are blind or visually impaired.
So why do we need accessible visualizations? Long answer short, it is the right thing to do.
The paper “Sociotechnical Considerations for Accessible Visualization Design” by Alan Lundgard, Crystal Lee, and Arvind Satyanarayan discusses how we may address designing accessible visualizations for PWD. The authors present a set of sociotechnical considerations for research in designing accessible visualizations.
The paper stresses designing with PWDs’ assistance as they are better informed about their own experiences and are essentially subject matter experts in this area. By treating PWD as co-designers, researchers are not biased by their own views. In having a co-designer who has lived experience of interacting with visuals, researchers avoid making assumptions during the design process on what features PWD would or would not benefit from.
Background Research
Despite developments in HCI and tactile graphics converging in Assistive Technologies, visualization researchers are not substantially engaged with the perspectives of PWD. The background work in the paper brings together disability studies, research on tactile information systems and participatory design methods.
Disability Studies: While designing for PWD, researchers must understand the two models of thinking about disability. The medical model ties the disability with the diagnosis and focuses on curing or managing the disability, while the social model describes the exclusion perpetuated against PWD and drives the adoption of assistive technologies.
Tactile Information Systems: Tactile systems include Braille displays, 3D models, and embossed maps. While designing tactile systems, researchers need to understand how blind and sighted users absorb information. These PWD take in information differently than those who are not considered PWD. Sighted users see the whole picture, while blind users put together information by touching parts of the graphic in a sequence.
Participatory Design Methods: Researchers should be attentive to power dynamics between themselves and participants. Participatory design research methods have been developed for researchers to work “with” participants rather than “on” their target population. By including PWD co-designers in the process, the separation between participants and researchers is minimized.
Sociotechnical Considerations
The researchers list sociotechnical considerations informed by their work for designing accessible visualizations.
1. Non-Intervention
During the design process, researchers should consider if technological intervention is needed. For PWD, however, this may worsen the very situations they are trying to help.
2. Research and Design
Researchers should find a balance between research and design. Research creates new knowledge, but does not necessarily address the user’s immediate needs. Design addresses those needs, but it may lack the research novelty.
3. Participatory Methods
Researchers should use participatory methods of research as they are key for inclusive design. By including PWD as equal participants in the design process, researchers gain insight into the experiences of PWD.
4. Communicating Expectations
Researchers should communicate their project goal with all collaborators. For an academic publication, author credit and order should be discussed. For a marketable prototype, equitable compensation and intellectual property rights should be discussed in advance.
5. Time and Compensation
Researchers should always be sensitive and respectful of their collaborators’ time. When it comes to PWD, they should be compensated for their specialized skills such as the ability to read braille or use a screen reader.
6. Accessibility Guidelines
Researchers should familiarize themselves with accessibility guidelines and keep them in mind while designing solutions.
7. Technology Access
Researchers should remember the technological constraints PWD may have.
8. Technology Resolution
Researchers should ensure that technologies can encode information effectively.
Conclusion
Researchers should revisit these considerations while designing accessible visualizations. In doing so, they can open exciting new opportunities for collaborations between PWD and visualization communities.
- Alan Lundgard, Crystal Lee, Arvind Satyanarayan. Sociotechnical Considerations for Accessible Visualization Design. In Proceedings of the IEEE Conference of Information Visualization, 2019.
