Web-based data visualizations have become very popular for exploring data and communicating insights. Newspapers, journals, and reports regularly publish visualizations to tell compelling stories with data. Unfortunately, most visualizations are inaccessible to readers with visual impairments. For many charts on the web, there are no accompanying alternative (alt) texts, and even if such texts exist they do not adequately describe important insights from charts. To address the problem, we first interviewed 15 blind users to understand their challenges and requirements for reading data visualizations. Based on the insights from these interviews, we developed SeeChart, an interactive tool that automatically deconstructs charts from web pages and then converts them to accessible visualizations for blind people by enabling them to hear the chart summary as well as to interact through data points using the keyboard. Our evaluation with 14 blind participants suggests the efficacy of SeeChart in understanding key insights from charts and fulfilling their information needs while reducing their required time and cognitive burden.
翻译:以网络为基础的数据可视化在探索数据和交流洞察力方面已变得非常流行。 报纸、杂志和报告定期发表可视化来用数据讲述令人信服的故事。 不幸的是,大多数可视化为视觉障碍的读者无法获得。 对于网上的许多图表来说,没有配套的替代(替代)文本,即使这些文本存在,它们也不足以描述图表中的重要见解。为了解决这个问题,我们首先采访了15个盲人用户,以了解他们在阅读数据可视化方面的挑战和要求。 根据这些访谈的洞察力,我们开发了SeChart, 这是一种互动工具,可以自动从网页上解开图表,然后将其转换为盲人无障碍的可视化,使他们能够听到图表摘要,并通过键盘通过数据点进行互动。 我们对14名盲人参与者的评价表明,SeeChart在理解图表的关键洞察力和满足其信息需要方面,在减少其所需时间和认知负担的同时,在理解其信息需要方面的效率。