VoxLens is a JavaScript library that improves the accessibility of online data visualizations for screen-reader users.
This library is part of an ongoing research project being conducted at the University of Washington, led by Ather Sharif. Citations and links to our published work can be found at the end of this document.
npm i voxlens --save
Currently, VoxLens supports:
- Visualization Libraries:
D3
,Google Charts
, andChartJS
. - Data Types: 2-D single-series data. Sample data sets are provided under
examples/src/data
. - Browser: Chrome
Option | Required/Optional | Description |
---|---|---|
x | Required | The key name of the indepedent variable in the dataset. |
y | Required | The key name of the depedent variable in the dataset. |
title | Required | The title of the visualization. Should be kept concise. |
xLabel | Optional | The label for x. Defaults to the value of x. Used to contruct sentences for the screen-reader users. If your dataset has key names that are not well named or reflect the data column appropriately, please consider setting this value. |
yLabel | Optional | The label for y. Defaults to the value of y. Used to contruct sentences for the screen-reader users. If your dataset has key names that are not well named or reflect the data column appropriately, please consider setting this value. |
import voxlens from 'voxlens';
const container = document.getElementById('chart');
const data = [
{ key: 'key1', value: 'value1' },
{ key: 'key2', value: 'value2' },
{ key: 'key3', value: 'value3' }
];
const voxlensOptions = {
x: 'key',
y: 'value',
title: 'This is the title of my visualization',
xLabel: 'My-X-Label',
yLabel: 'My-Y-Label,
};
Add this line to the appropriate nested element:
.call((d) => voxlens('d3', d, data, voxlensOptions));
voxlens('googlecharts', chart, data, voxlensOptions);
voxlens('chartjs', container, data, voxlensOptions);
Examples are provided under the example
folder. Run npm start
from within the example
folder. A sample React app will run on localhost:3000
. URLs for each library are as follows:
- ChartJS: localhost:3000/chartjs
- D3: localhost:3000/d3
- Google Charts: localhost:3000/googlecharts
Modifier Keys: Ctrl + Shift (Windows) and Option (MacOS)
Mode | Activation Key | Description |
---|---|---|
Question-and-Answer | Modifier Keys + A/Modifier Keys + 1 | Enables users to interact with the visualization through voice commands using their microphone |
Summary | Modifier Keys + S/Modifier Keys + 2 | Provides a holistic summary of the data contained in the visualization |
Sonification | Modifier Keys + M/Modifier Keys + 3 | Plays a sonified version of the data using the sonifier library |
Instructions | Modifier Keys + I/Modifier Keys + 4 | Provides the user with instructions on how to interact with VoxLens |
In order to interact with the VoxLens, basic knowledge of screen reader usage is required, as well as a microphone. We understand that most people are not familiar with the screen readers, so we've also enabled console logs to show the output. When the screen reader reads the visualization, it also speaks out the instructions to interact with the graph, which is not presented visually to non-screen-reader users. For example, activating the question-and-answer mode will make a beep sound, after which a command such as "what is the maximum" or "tell me the average" can be said. The response for non-screen-reader users will appear in the console log (can be accessed via Chrome Developer Tools).
ESLint is used for linting.
Command: make lint
/ npm run lint
Mocha and Enzyme are used as testing frameworks and for coverage. Adding/modifying tests for the proposed changes and ensuring that the coverage is at 100% is crucial. To run tests in watch mode:
npm run test
To generate coverage report:
npm run test:coverage
JSDoc is used for documentation. It's important to follow the guidelines for JSDoc to add informative and descriptive comments and documentation to the code. Documentation can be found here.
Command: make docs
/ npm run docs
Prettier is used for code formatting.
Command: make prettier
/ npm run prettier
Babel is used for build purposes. Runs lint, tests, code formatter and docs as well.
Command: make build
/ npm run prepublish
Pull requests are welcome and appreciated. Contributing guidelines can be found here.
Licensed under MIT. Can be found here.
Sharif, A., Chintalapati, S. S., Wobbrock, J. O., & Reinecke, K. (2021, October). Understanding Screen-Reader Users’ Experiences with Online Data Visualizations. In The 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (pp. 1-16).
Sharif, A., Wang, O.H., Muongchan, A.T., Reinecke, K. and Wobbrock, J.O. (2022). VoxLens: Making online data visualizations accessible with an interactive JavaScript plug-in. Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22). New Orleans, Louisiana (April 30 - May 6, 2022). New York: ACM Press. To appear.
PDF | Presentation