[Fwd: Links to videos illustrating the challenge(s) for blind users ofcharts]

[Malte Timmermann <Malte.Timmermann@Sun.COM>]

Hi,

I had asked Ingrid, our chart expert, for comments on chart accessibility.

Please find some annotations below - there is also an interesting
keyboard-access-how-to that I didn't know.

Comments?

Best,
Malte.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Links to videos illustrating the challenge(s) for
blind users of charts]
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:10:45 +0100
From: Ingrid Halama <Ingrid.Halama@Sun.COM>
To: Malte Timmermann <Malte.Timmermann@Sun.COM>
References: <494949CC.6000704@sun.com>

Hi Malte, dear TC,

I have watched Peters videos about accessibility of charts.
 From the implementation point of view in OpenOffice.org it would be
possible to offer a read only tabular view of the data for those charts
that do not have their own data but obtain it from a spreadsheet (or a
writer table).
The problem I see here is that not disabled users will get confused with
an additional presentation of the underlying data.
Because we then have the 'Data Ranges' dialog and an additional 'Data
table'. How can we assure that users know that the 'data table' is not
for editing in this case?
We already have a menu entry View->'Chart Data Table' that is currently
disabled in case the data is not contained in the chart itself.
Maybe we should rename this entry to View->'Data Table (Assistive
display for disabled users)' or similar for those cases? Or is it
sufficient to rename the upcoming data table itself - maybe 'Data Table
(alternative data display for disabled users)'?
I am not sure. Are there other cases where extra menu entries or extra
functionality is integrated into the regular user interface for
assistive purposes only? Are there any helpful guidelines for these cases?
In my opinion a solution for accessibility should avoid to irritate not
disabled users.

In the video there was the impression that it is not possible to
navigate through portions of the chart. You can! Use the tab-key to
navigate through the main objects and then F3 to enter a group and
shift-F3 to leave the group again. Thus you can navigate through the
single data points of the series. Traveling through the visible
representation of the data points has the advantage that multiple values
that form one data point could be read together. For example for a
bubble chart you could read x value, y value and bubble size for each
single bubble. Also in this way it is possible to open the property
dialogs for series and points and thus get information about additional
attributes and/or edit those attributes. A data table does not offer
these possibilities.

Kind regards,
Ingrid

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: 	Links to videos illustrating the challenge(s) for blind users
> of charts
> Date: 	Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:31:10 -0800
> From: 	Peter Korn <Peter.Korn@Sun.COM>
> To: 	Malte Timmermann <Malte.Timmermann@Sun.COM>
>
> http://mediacast.sun.com/share/korn/chart-accessibility-challenge.ogg
> http://mediacast.sun.com/share/korn/chart-in-writer-behavior.ogg