Today, we learnt about accessibility within Tableau and how we can make our dashboards as inclusive as possible.
We started off the day talking about accessibility best practices. This included tips such as clear titles, labelling and creating high contrasts between colours. This was really insightful as it opens your eyes to how simple changes can make a big difference for an impairment or disability.
We were then tasked with making an accessible dashboard where I was tasked with creating a dashboard that was easily used by someone with a screen reader. Screen readers allows users who are visually impaired or blind to use their computer.
I started the day by trying to understand how a screen reader works. I downloaded a software called NVDA which is a free screen reader so I can see how my dashboard would work with one. I realised how important the description would be on my charts and dashboard.
When building the dashboard, I kept in mind how clear and concise the graphs and titles needed to be. For the bar charts, I made sure they were clearly labelled with a big font size that was easy to read. When putting together these charts, I ensured the order was clear to see and used borders around the edges to clearly define each chart. I also changed the background from stark white to an off white to ensure that the colours aren't so harsh and easier on the eyes however there was still enough contrast to see the difference between the colours.
Overall, I found building this dashboard quite difficult. I tried hard to explain and summarise the findings clearly in the alt text however it was difficult to think of the right words to explain the graphs. I would like to improve the design of the dashboard as I was trying to make it aesthetically pleasing as well as inclusive.