This presentation covers various methods for making your infographics not only accessible, but also shareable. This presentation was developed for the CSUN 2013 conference. The accessible version of this presentation is at http://www.last-child.com/accessible-infographics/csun-2013-presentation/

1. Accessible
Infographics
CSUN 2013
Ted Drake, Intuit Accessibility
Test pages and sample code:
last-child.com/accessible-infographics
Slides:
Slideshare.net/7mary4/
Twitter:
@ted_drake
Wednesday, March 6, 13
Many of these slides will have cute images of otters. You won’t be missing anything if you are
not able to see the slide.
I will announce anything that is important.
I am interested in meeting with Intuit users to get your feedback. What works, what doesn’t?
Otter images are available via creative commons and Flickr.

2. What is an
infographic?
Wednesday, March 6, 13

3. Wednesday, March 6, 13
“Even as a tree has a single trunk,
but many branches and leaves, there
is one religion, but many faiths” - Mahatma Gandhi

4. Wednesday, March 6, 13
http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/05/sprinklr-funding/
the social media map as defined by sprinklr

5. Wednesday, March 6, 13
http://www.disabled-world.com/disability/statistics/american-disability.php

6. Wednesday, March 6, 13

7. Goals
“otter” by Sodaro,k
Wednesday, March 6, 13
This presentation will cover the following topics
The Audience
Longdesc attribute
Using ARIA
Including the transcript
Linking to the transcript
Recommendations
“otter” by Sodaro,k

8. Audience
“otters” by Adrian Maidment
Wednesday, March 6, 13
These solutions do not consider the screen reader user as the only audience. They place equal importance on developers, including bloggers, as well as marketing teams that hope to
generate publicity by creating engaging infographics. They were tested against the following criteria:
• Browsers and screen reader support
• The viewers ability to copy/paste the content
• Ease of coding and sharing

9. “Otters!” by ianbckwltr
Wednesday, March 6, 13
Longdesc
The longdesc attribute allows developers to connect an image to a description.
It is not fully supported and has been targeted for deprecation in HTML5
It’s easy to code.

10. <img
src=”otter.jpg”
alt=”wild otter”
longdesc=”otter.html”>
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The longdesc attribute contains a reference to a web page with the full description of the
image.
The description can be located on the same page as the image.

11. Wednesday, March 6, 13
This video shows JAWS announcing an image with a long description and subsequently
navigating to the page with the long description.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXF7JwY3rxI

12. ARIA
“Otter” by Stephen & Claire Farnsworth
Wednesday, March 6, 13
The ARIA standard allows developers to make interactive, application-like web sites accessible.
ARIA attributes allow developers to define roles, states, and labels.
There are two attributes that could be used for making infographics accessible.

13. Wednesday, March 6, 13
Tweet conversation Feb. 13
@ted_drake: From a purely semantic standpoint. What should replace longdesc: aria-labelledby or aria-describedby? What about user
expectation? #a11y
@Jennison: @ted_drake Re user expectation, I bet if you asked the "average" user, they wouldn't care which one, so long as the info is
there.

14. webaxe
@ted_drake Also, the main problem with
replacing #longdesc is that aria
alternatives strip out all structural
markup, no? @Jennison
Wednesday, March 6, 13
While the longdesc allowed the user to navigate to a page with the description,
the aria-describedby attribute causes the screen reader to grab that content and announce
it as a single text string. The user cannot stop, rewind, or navigate the description.
Tweet from WebAxe about the stringification of the description.

15. aria-describedby
<img
src=”otter.jpg”
alt=”wild otter”
aria-
describedby=”otter”>
Wednesday, March 6, 13
The aria-describedby attribute points to content on the same page that provides a secondary
description.
It over-rides the title attribute.
Support is inconsistent

16. Wednesday, March 6, 13
This video shows VoiceOver and Safari announcing an infographic with aria-describedby.
Notice there is a short delay before the description is announced.
The user may not know the description is available.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fdv8lXN5amo

17. aria-labelledby
<img
src=”otter.jpg”
alt=”wild otter”
aria-
labelledby=”otter”>
Wednesday, March 6, 13
aria-labelledby is normally used for form inputs. It allows the user to define a label via
content on the page.
aria-labelledby over-rides the alt attribute on an image.
The user may not know they have landed on an image, they are immediately presented with
the description as a text string.

18. Wednesday, March 6, 13
This short video shows how VoiceOver announces an image with aria-labelledby.
Notice VoiceOver does not announce the image has focus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If3pBxuHGVg

19. Include the Transcript
Otter Creek Used Book Sign from benjamin_scott_florin
Wednesday, March 6, 13
Longdesc allows the user to navigate to a transcript.
Aria attributes trigger the screen reader grab that content and announce it.
Including the transcript makes it accessible to everyone, regardless of devices.
Long transcripts can be distracting when the infographic is shared.

20. Wednesday, March 6, 13
This short video shows VoiceOver announcing an infographic and its transcript.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6i4Z2nRYLs

21. Hide the transcript
Peek-A-Boo by Rega Photography
Wednesday, March 6, 13
Hide the transcript visually, yet make it available to screen readers with the clip pattern
http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2012/10/clip-your-hidden-content-for-
better-accessibility/
This is great for screen reader users, but sighted users are not able to copy/paste content.
Hidden links will receive focus, which can be confusing for sighted keyboard users.

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This video shows how a screen reader announces the hidden content. Visually there is not
much change on the page as the screen reader moves through the hidden description.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA-xVkY5_ys

23. Toggle the Transcript
Otter Love part deux by markspokes49
Wednesday, March 6, 13
Give everyone the ability to read and interact with the transcript by hiding it initially and
providing a toggle button. Using display:none will hide the content completely.
It’s important to control focus when toggling visibility to make sure screen reader users know
the page has changed.
Iframes may not expand to include the new content. This will generate scroll bars in some
browsers.

24. Accessible Toggles
1.Visible with JavaScript disabled.
2.JS hides transcript & gives header
tabindex=”-1”
3.Make the transcript visible, set focus on
header, hide the “show” button.
4.Hide the transcript, display the show
button, set focus back on the show button.
Wednesday, March 6, 13
1. The toggle behavior depends on JavaScript, so on page load we will hide the transcript and give the header tabindex="-1"
for future focus.
2. The show button will make the transcript visible, set focus on the transcript’s first header, and hide the show button.
3. The hide buttons will close the transcript, make the show button visible, and set focus back on the show button

25. Wednesday, March 6, 13
This video shows how the transcript can easily be toggled. It also shows how focus is moved
to the relevant areas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZuNBe5DK6M

26. Transcript Links
New Forest otters by Prince Heathen
Wednesday, March 6, 13
Adding a link to the transcript allows everyone to view an accessible description.
Sharing the links can improve SEO
[d] or descriptive links were not well adapted and the abbreviation is confusing.
Add a standard text link or wrap the infographic in a link.

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This video shows a screen reader announcing the various transcript link options.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=350NeoM203M

28. Sharing the infographic
Otter mom and pup by mikebaird
Wednesday, March 6, 13
Many infographics are created to promote a company, campaign, or organization. Their power increases as individuals spread
the message by reposting the infographic.
It’s easy to share an image. It’s not easy to share the extra code needed to make it accessible.
iframes allow developers to place infographic and transcript on their servers and provide a simple method for sharing.
photo title: This image is honored as Wikipdia Picture of the Day 28 July 2009 (Best of 3) Sea Otter (Enhydra lutris) mother
with nursing pup in the Morro Bay harbor

29. Sharing the
infographic link
<a href=”http://otters.com”>
<img
src=”otters.jpg”
alt=”otter sports”>
</a>
Wednesday, March 6, 13

30. Using iFrames
Here I am by alumroot
Wednesday, March 6, 13
iframes allow us to easily embed content from other sites.
YouTube’s use of iframes has forced blog and other publishing platforms to accept iframed
content.
iframes are sandboxes and are not affected by CSS or JS on host page.

31. <iframe
seamless="seamless"
src="http://otters.com"
title="Otter diets"
height="100"
width="600">
</iframe>
Wednesday, March 6, 13
The seamless attribute, not fully supported, allows iframes to expand to content and inherit
styles
iframes require a title for accessibility

32. Final Sharing
Recommendations
• Wrap your infographic in a link that
points to a page that includes the
infographic and visible transcript.
• Use an iframe and offer a page with
visually hidden or toggled transcript.
Wednesday, March 6, 13

33. More Options
• HTML5 contextual menu
• Display descriptive link on hover/focus
• Accessible-Longdesc JavaScript
• epub:describedAt, aria-describedat
• Image Description Service: Poet
Wednesday, March 6, 13
the HTML5 menu allows developers to modify the browser’s contextual menu.
Accessible Longdesc takes the longdesc source and makes it navigable by any user.
THe Diagram Center is researching methods to increase image descriptions within e-books
http://diagramcenter.org/development/poet/image-description-process.html

34. Questions
I don’t trust you, otter by splityam
Wednesday, March 6, 13