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Accessibility roadblock - Visualizations #82

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@erinchambers

Austen Said's visualization present some case-specific accessibility problems

Novel Visualizations - chapters

Some things we need to think about:

  • Screen readers do not announce text color or background color; there must be a machine-readable indication of where a certainty highlight begins and where it ends.
  • The darker "indirect" blue/gray shades are not contrast compliant with the text color
  • ...that said, WCAG 2.1 requires that you don't convey meaning with color alone, so we could think about using a
  • The hide/show also hides the key, not just the highlighting within the text, which seems not great for cognitive disabilities

Novel Visualizations - full novels

Example: https://cdrhrailsdev.unl.edu/austen/visualizations/pride_and_prejudice/all

Similar talking points to the above - plus: the intention of the page seems to be showing an overview of certainty by overall location in the novel (FID becomes a lot more certain on average in the second half of the novel, FID outnumbers indirect except for in Chapter 52, etc.). General best practice with complex visualizations, as it stands in 2026, is to give as much of a narrative describing the major argument and/or results as possible. This calls to mind interpretive essays or scholarly reflections. I don't know if we could solicit one from Laura or collaborate on one or something, but I think that would be a significant improvement.

If the intention of the page is actually just to put all the chapters on a single page, we should just make them all full-width proceeding sequentially down the page :)

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a11yAccessibility changes REQUIRED to meet ADA Title II requirements (WCAG 2.1 Level AA).discuss

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