Improve the accessibility of tactile charts

Abstract

Blind and visually impaired people are able to access visual charts by the mean of tactile representations. However, their production is time-consuming and requires know-how and skills in tactile chart design. Our main goal is to support blind, visually impaired as well as sighted authors by automating the creation process of tactile charts. We follow an user-centered design approach. Therefore, we analyzed both transcribers and users of tactile charts by conducting a survey on blind, visually impaired and sighted authors. On that basis, we identified steps and challenges of the production process, how users interact with tactile charts, design guidelines, as well as user preferences and tasks. As a result, we summarize requirements for an application that automates the creation of tactile charts.