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Charts can convey a lot of information but are difficult to make accessible for visually impaired and blind users. The most common solutions are to include a data table or attempt to describe the chart in alt text, often resulting in a subpar user experience.
I’m a blind software developer and one of the contributors to Chart2Music (C2M), an open source JavaScript/TypeScript package which tries to simplify creating accessible charts. It works with pretty much any charting library to add interactive sonification and verbal output through screen reading software.
The goals of the project are: * Allow chart authors to make accessible charts without having to understand sonification best practices or how to force screen readers to speak using ARIA * Allow blind consumers to explore charts and look for trends in the data without having to navigate large data tables * Work alongside charting libraries so authors can continue to control the visuals using the tools that they know best * Be easy to use in the majority of cases but allow deeper customization and integration when desired
Now that C2M is stable and ready to be used, I’m interested in finding a way to integrate it with some of the system dashboards, so I can monitor server resources like CPU and memory utilization for my side projects.
