# Blind people need to be considered more when making data visualizations

DevFeed: [Blind people need to be considered more when making data visualizations](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/blind-people-need-to-be-considered-more-when-making-data-visualizations-9376.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://a11yproject.com/posts/blind-people-need-to-be-considered-more-when-making-data-visualizations/>)

Author: Johny Cassidy

Published: 2022-09-22T00:00:00Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [The A11Y Project](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-a11y-project.md>)

Topics: [Accessibility](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/accessibility.md>), [Data visualization](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data-visualization.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/data.md>)

Tags: [accessibility](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/accessibility.md>), [data](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data.md>), [data-visualization](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/data-visualization.md>), [visualization](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/visualization.md>)

## AI overview

The article argues that the growing use of visual data journalism can exclude blind people and others with visual impairments. It calls for accessible alternatives, such as meaningful text and audio descriptions, so that data visualizations can be understood by everyone.

## Source excerpt

Visual data representation is being used more and more in digital newsrooms across the world. The downside, however, is how exclusionary this can be for people with visual impairments. It's clear that visual journalism will play a huge part in the digital future for media outlets. From audience analytics tools measuring the impact of content, to representing complicated data in an easy to digest format, it's easy to see the benefits of such tools and production techniques for creating impactful digital journalism. It's also clear that without a better understanding of how to make visual journalism work for everyone that huge parts of the audience are going to be left behind. In the UK alone, the Royal National Institute of Blind People estimate that around 2 million people are living with some sort of sight loss. Globally, the World Health Organization claim the number is close to 2.2 billion, with that number set to rise dramatically as people continue to age. As a blind journalist, I'm concerned that the increased use of visual data representation without careful and creative thought about accessibility is widening the inaccessibility gap. An example During the COVID pandemic I wasn't easily able to access COVID data represented on digital graphs, and I wasn't alone. A project by MIT researching the problem of data visualization accessibility cited a simple chart from the beginning of the pandemic. The cited chart demonstrated the benefits of mask wearing and social distancing for limiting the spread of the disease. The chart was amplified by many global media outlets, but was missed by millions of blind readers due to lack of meaningful text or audio description. Data journalism's access issues and greater potential In my job as a digital journalist, I'm becoming increasingly aware of the desire to publish more and more impactful visual data journalism. For a lot of people, visual representations of complicated data has the ability to translate data into a format