Who can read your chart?

What if you're blind? Most of the data we publish would leave you out.

Data drives decisions in almost every industry now, and the way we usually show it, through infographics, maps, charts and other visual formats, favors people with good sight and above-average literacy.

This exclusionary approach neglects blind and low-vision readers, and people with cognitive disabilities. As designers and developers, it's high time we broaden our perspective and champion inclusivity.

Data insights, not data visualizations

Let's start with the name. "Data visualization" puts the visual reading of data first, so it overlooks everyone who takes data in another way.

So I propose we shift to the term "data insights". It includes everyone, whatever they can see, and however they think.

The story comes before the chart

Choosing how to show data before thinking about who will use it is like buying a car for its color. Let's start instead with the story the data tells.

I've written before about including disabled people in design teams, in What changes when disabled people are on the team?

I also built a small web tool, No Latin (opens in a new tab), which helps UX professionals work content first, and test ideas with disabled people early.

Data insights everyone can understand don't need a complicated process. What they need is intention, in how we already work.

So before picking a chart type, narrate what the data might mean to the person reading it. Describe it without leaning on anything visual.

Take this data record, published by the United States Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP):

Data Table: "Number of children in early childhood programs served under Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA), Part B, by disability and state: 2021-22."

It's a detailed count of children aged 3 through 5 with different disabilities, served under IDEA, across all US states and territories. The figures below come from the department's Table 2 for 2021–22 (opens in a new tab).

A first look turns up some patterns:

Autism has a significant presence in most states, with California reporting over 13,000 cases, the highest in this category.

Some disabilities, like Deaf-blindness, appear less frequently, indicating these conditions might be less common or underreported.

Speech or language impairments are highest in California and Texas. New York's large count is almost all developmental delay.

Now we have a story, and the next step is working out how to tell it. The key is NOT to start choosing a chart type. Instead, imagine how a screen reader user would hear the story.

Step 1: Your primary user has a disability

When a screen reader user lands on a page reporting this data, the page has a few jobs to do:

• Confirm it's the right report, by announcing the window title when the page loads.
• Offer clear, complete page navigation.
• Use proper heading names, in a clear hierarchy that screen readers can follow.
• Put the content ahead of how it looks.

Step 2: Design with words first

Don't rush to visualize the data. Design with words first. Later, add things like a bar graph, making sure each one meets the accessibility requirements for data visualizations.

Priority guides are quick to make, and fun. Here's the order we proposed:

1. Header and navigation
   • Page name and description
2. Report name
   • Title and description
3. About the report
   • Report metadata
4. Quick Summary
   • List of data highlights
5. Key indicators
   • Top 5 States by All Disabilities
     • State 1
     • State 2
     • State 3
     • State 4
     • State 5
   • Top 3 disabilities in All States
     • Indicator 1
     • Indicator 2
     • Indicator 3
6. Parents Resources
   • List of resources
7. Contact us
   • Name
   • E-mail address
   • Message
   • Submit Button

Step 3: Describe each section

Add one more layer of intent to those sections, and the priority guide starts to take shape. A screen reader user can now understand what the data means, without effort.

Header and navigation

• Title: Child Count by States
• Description: This dataset provides a detailed child count with various disabilities, ages 3 through 5 served under IDEA across all states and territories of the United States.

Report Name

• Title: IDEA Section 618 Data Products
• Description: Section 618 of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires that each state submit data about the infants and toddlers, birth through age 2, who receive early intervention services under Part C of IDEA and children with disabilities, ages 3 through 21, who receive special education and related services under Part B of IDEA.

About this data:

• Updated: 3 months ago.
• License: Creative Commons CCZero
• Publisher: Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)
• Tags: #count #data-products #disability

Quick Summary

Here are some highlights we extracted from this data before getting into the details:

• In the period between 2021 and 2022, there were 471,377 cases of children with disabilities in all states.

• There were 216,727 children with Developmental Delay in all states. This was the largest disability type, followed by Speech or language impairments with 158,832 cases reported.

• Autism is the third largest category, with 60,945 children. California reports the most, 13,223. That's about one and a half times Texas, the second highest, with 8,701. Pennsylvania is third, with 4,256.

• Some types of disabilities, like Deaf-blindness, appear less frequently in the dataset, indicating these conditions might be less common or underreported.

• Speech or language impairments are highest in California and Texas. New York's count is almost all developmental delay: 35,660 of its 40,172 children.

• California, Texas and Puerto Rico report no figure for developmental delay, so they're missing from that list.

Key Indicators

This section showcases the top states and top disabilities reported in this data.

Top 5 states by all disabilities

States and territories sorted by the reported number of all disabilities

1. California: 41,751
2. New York: 40,172
3. Texas: 29,975
4. Pennsylvania: 28,317
5. Illinois: 22,755

Top 3 disabilities in all states

Largest number of disabilities reported in all States and territories.

Developmental delay was the top disability reported in 2021–22.

216,727 children. Top ten states and territories:

1. New York: 35,660
2. Florida: 14,617
3. Pennsylvania: 13,081
4. New Jersey: 12,832
5. Illinois: 11,273
6. Missouri: 7,812
7. Minnesota: 6,677
8. Arkansas: 6,427
9. Ohio: 6,300
10. Virginia: 6,286

California, Texas and Puerto Rico report no figure for this category.

Speech or language impairments were the second largest.

158,832 children. Top ten states and territories:

1. California: 23,468
2. Texas: 15,353
3. Pennsylvania: 9,393
4. Illinois: 8,294
5. Ohio: 8,000
6. Michigan: 6,457
7. Indiana: 5,882
8. Puerto Rico: 5,058
9. Kentucky: 4,796
10. Wisconsin: 4,357

Autism was the third largest.

60,945 children. Top ten states and territories:

1. California: 13,223
2. Texas: 8,701
3. Pennsylvania: 4,256
4. Ohio: 3,175
5. Massachusetts: 2,606
6. Florida: 2,212
7. North Carolina: 2,106
8. Illinois: 1,974
9. Tennessee: 1,387
10. Michigan: 1,270

Parents Resources

Remember, you're not alone in this journey. There are many resources available to support you and your child. It may take time to find the best strategies and interventions for your child, but with patience and support, progress is possible.

There are many resources available to parents of disabled children, from government programs and non-profit organizations to online communities and educational resources. The following are some resources we are gathering to provide parents in the near future:

• Resource item with link will be here in the future
• Resource item with link will be here in the future
• Resource item with link will be here in the future

Contact Us

Do you have a question or suggest about this report or data? Please send us a message in the form below and we will respond via email as early as possible.

• Enter your name:
  • text input
• Your email address
  • email input
• What's your comment or question?
  • textarea input
• Send button

Step 4: Prototype with accessibility built in

Most UX professionals struggle to fit accessibility into their design process. Disabled users pay for that with worse experiences.

Mostly, it's because Agile teams leave content design and accessibility to the end of the design and development cycle.

For this exercise, we used a web tool to make the priority guides, and export a fully accessible prototype with these features:

• Detailed skip-links
• Purposeful landmarks
• Semantic headings
• Appropriate aria attributes
• Image alternative text
• Visual focus appearance

We can share the prototype with the people in our usability study, disabled people included, through this link:

Accessible prototype (opens in a new tab)

Last step: test with people before designing the layout

Before recruiting anyone for a usability study, we always test the page with screen readers. We pay close attention to how the page navigation works, and how the screen reader pronounces the content.

If we move from a visual bias to inclusion, we can make data fair for everyone. Behind every data point is a person.

The first principle of inclusive design says we need to learn to recognize exclusion (opens in a new tab).

When we notice and address the different ways people take in data, we can build a more inclusive, complete and effective way to communicate.