We recently ran our first course about making data accessible. It’s a course for content designers, UX writers, communications professionals, editors, web managers and publishers all about data accessibility considerations. We focus on tables, charts and graphs. We help people move from ‘this is the least bad solution’ to ‘this is an accessible and usable way to use data’.
In putting together our course, we recognised that making data accessible also makes it more user-friendly. Accessible data is helpful. It’s data which we can understand, remember and reuse.
Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with all course participants saying that:
- this course was relevant to their work
- they learned something new
- they would recommend the course to other content designers
Why content designers need to get comfortable with data
Content designers are experts when it comes to words, structure and usability. They are specialists at understanding users’ needs. And they are great at telling compelling stories. But numbers and statistics might not come as easy to us as words do.
Although data professionals know their data really well, they may not be the best people to understand what users need from it, or how to present it in an accessible and usable way.
People who work on digital content are usually the people who press publish for data. Before publishing, they need to know what questions to ask about data to make it as accessible and useful as possible. Without that layer of questioning, there’s a risk that data is published without checks.
To make sure we can connect with people in a world of data, everyone who works with digital content needs to get comfortable with data.
Data is everywhere
The world seems to be all about data these days. Executives love using data to demonstrate that teams met their targets. We measure improvements using data. We monitor analytics. Everything is about statistics. We’re all encouraged to be ‘data driven’.
But data is often invisible to disabled people, who make up a quarter of the population. Maybe it’s inaccessible to assistive technology, or maybe it’s just too complicated to understand.
Some things to consider
When you publish data, ask:
- Is text readable?
- Can keyboard-only users navigate the data?
- Can people with colour deficiencies see the data?
- Can magnification users enlarge the data?
- Can screenreader users follow the data?
- Can users with cognitive impairments understand the data?
Making sure that everyone can understand data led us to some usability considerations:
- Is the most important thing obvious?
- Is all of this data necessary and relevant?
- Is this the best layout, format or chart type?
- Are trends clear and understandable?
What you’ll learn
In our 2 hour workshop, you’ll learn:
- about accessibility constraints and considerations for different access needs
- what works (and what doesn’t) for different types of assistive technology
- how to start the discussion about data accessibility and usability with data professionals and subject matter experts
- how to make accessible, usable and effective HTML tables, graphs and charts
- how to make data you don’t control more accessible
Real scenarios and real examples
With lived experience of several accessibility needs and different assistive technologies, we’ll demonstrate how different types of assistive technology navigate and interact with data. We’ll then discuss some constraints we need to set to make sure that our data is accessible.
Thinking about what you’ve learned, you’ll work through different examples of HTML tables to make improvements. We’ll then move on to different types of charts and graphs, to consider how they might be changed for improved accessibility.
We save the last 15 minutes of the workshop for problem-solving time. We encourage participants to bring any questions and issues about data, so that we can work through them together.
Future workshops
Find out more about making data accessible or email coursebooking@contentdesignireland.ie.