Engineering Adaptive Information Graphics for Disabled Communities: A Case Study with Public Space Indoor Maps
Anuradha Madugalla, Yutan Huang, John Grundy, Min Hee Cho, Lasith Koswatta Gamage, Tristan Leao, Sam Thiele
TL;DR
This work tackles the lack of accessible information graphics for disability communities by proposing an adaptive SVG framework. It encompasses requirements elicitation from experts and 80 disabled participants, a Python-based graphic-generation pipeline, and a React-based web tool that presents layered accessibility features in floorplan maps. The study demonstrates that adaptive SVG supports multiple disabilities and provides actionable guidelines for front-end developers, with a preliminary evaluation showing ease of use and broad requirement coverage. The findings have practical implications for public-space design and broader information-graphics accessibility, while outlining avenues for standardization and broader evaluation.
Abstract
Most software applications contain graphics such as charts, diagrams and maps. Currently, these graphics are designed with a ``one size fits all" approach and do not cater to the needs of people with disabilities. Therefore, when using software with graphics, a colour-impaired user may struggle to interpret graphics with certain colours, and a person with dyslexia may struggle to read the text labels in the graphic. Our research addresses this issue by developing a framework that generates adaptive and accessible information graphics for multiple disabilities. Uniquely, the approach also serves people with multiple simultaneous disabilities. To achieve these, we used a case study of public space floorplans presented via a web tool and worked with four disability groups: people with low vision, colour blindness, dyslexia and mobility impairment. Our research involved gathering requirements from 3 accessibility experts and 80 participants with disabilities, developing a system to generate adaptive graphics that address the identified requirements, and conducting an evaluation with 7 participants with disabilities. The evaluation showed that users found our solution easy to use and suitable for most of their requirements. The study also provides recommendations for front-end developers on engineering accessible graphics for their software and discusses the implications of our work on society from the perspective of public space owners and end users.