Using Web Standards to Design Accessible Data Visualizations in Professional Communication

Introduction:
Data visualization is a reliable tool for professional communication practitioners to synthesize and present data for a variety of audiences. However, data visualizations have a range of accessibility concerns, including visual acuity, color/contrast difficulties, color blindness, and size/scale issues. Data visualizations should therefore be designed following web standards for complex images to ensure that they are accessible to audiences with diverse needs.
Key concepts:
Drawing from work in professional communication and disability studies, practitioners recognize that users have varied accessibility needs. “Universal design” as a guiding principle is less helpful than targeted approaches to design that reflect actual user needs. Such targeted approaches should follow web standards for accessible design because they enable interaction with newer accessibility technologies and put more control in the hands of users.
Key lessons:
Follow these best practices to create visually accessible data visualizations. 1. Design the visual for accessibility by using whitespace, creating contrast, maintaining size/scale, and labeling the visual clearly. 2. Implement the visual using web standards to create semantic connections between the visual and text for both users and accessibility technologies. This goal can be achieved with textual description, overview/data/presentation context, or ARIA semantic links. 3. Test the visual for accessibility through user tests and industry-standard tools.
Implications for practice:
Web standards provide a blueprint for designing accessible data visualizations for online spaces, but professional communicators should be aware of the coding expertise and necessary infrastructure needed to deploy these visuals. Nevertheless, with increasing use of public-facing data visualizations to convey information on global issues, such as COVID-19, the need for these visuals to be accessible to all audiences becomes paramount.