[BlindRUG] BlindRUG Digest, Vol 58, Issue 2

[Marcus Low]

Dear Robin and Liz

Thank you for an interesting discussion.

I also find the poor accessibility of graphs a constant frustration. A
related problem is the poor accessibility of mathematics, or any kind
of equation really, in e-books. Here there is even less excuse for
people not to make content accessible. It is such a relief to
encounter MathML-formatted math online that can be read in a sensible
way with a screen reader.

Which brings me to a question, is anyone aware of a guide to producing
accessible mathematics using RMarkdown?

Regarding accessibility of graphs/figures, I’d say there are four approaches:
1.	Getting authors (like the BBC) to write better alt-text. This is
probably best done by developing some standards/guidelines for what
constitutes good description and then advocating for the adoption of
those standards/guidelines. It would be a great project for the World
Blind Union, RNIB, or one of those organisations to take up.
2.	Getting authors to use more accessible formats/standards, to the
extent that they exist. I am sure others on the list no more about
this than me.

3.	Crowd-sourcing image description, which I think has excellent
potential. See e.g.
https://www.bookshare.org/cms/about/news/press-releases/benetech-releases-image-description-tool-improve-accessibility-graphical-content-students-print
4.	Using machine learning to generate descriptions, which could
potentially be done in conjunction with crowd-sourcing efforts. It
seems to me that step one for any ML solution would be to categorise
graphs as say pie charts, histograms, or whatever – and then once
classified, to extract some specific information from the image using
a second ML model specifically trained to produce descriptions for
that type of graph. Again, I’m not an expert on this, but I think
there is some fascinating and very useful work to be done here for
someone with the energy and time.

I’m happy to keep discussing these issues off-list with those who are
interested if people feel it is clogging the list with non-R issues.

Thanks
Marcus


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