Accessibility in Tableau refers to the design and implementation of Tableau dashboards in a way that allows users with disabilities to access and interact with them effectively. Some ways you would implement accessibility in tableau dashboards for keyboard only users are:
- Keyboard navigation should be efficient and easy-to-use
- Provide keyboard shortcuts for navigation and specific tasks
- The dashboard should be labeled and structured clearly
- The layout should be logical and consistent
- Test the dashboard with assistive technologies such as screen readers to ensure full accessibility (I did not do this but I 100% will next time!)
My task was to make an already formatted dashboard accessible for those who are keyboard only tableau users. Some of the changes I made were:
- remove any tooltips and make that information more visible
- include navigation hints on how to use the dashboard e.g. Tab to navigate to different parts of the dashboard, Shift+Tab to go back, up and down to scroll and Enter to select.
- Make any important info hidden in the charts visible e.g. labels, captions and dynamic headers.
- Remove multiple value filters for single value only.
- Insert a Reset button for the filters.
- Move around containers so that the important information is bigger and easier to spot.
One thing I noticed from doing this challenge was how much I rely on my mouse and touchpad to use Tableau. It becomes very difficult to do simply navigation tasks without! I also think that Tableau server is far more accessible than desktop when it comes to navigating with the Tab button on your keyboard. The reason why is simply that each time you hit Tab to move around the chart in Server, the area is highlighted with a blue box so that the user knows where they are. This is not the case in Desktop. It would have saved me a lot of time if I have published to server before I spent an hour fighting with my dashboard to figure out where my tab selection was going! Could be a cool option to have when Device Layout is selected...