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Canvas Gauges

canvas-gauges.com

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Re: Canvas Gauges

#41

Post by ctoth »

ctoth wrote: post #39
strictnein wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the defacto accessibility guy at work, and I'm trying to think of a good way to present this type of data in an accessible way, but I'm having trouble. When the gauges are fixed, it would be pretty straight forward, but as the gauges change, I'm not sure of a good way to present that, especially when the gauges are moving quickly.

I would probably use an invisible aria-live region coupled with some logic to not spew messages to it too frequently or a minimum change to actually autoread. Could also do something like providing checkboxes only visible to the screen reader to subscribe/unsubscribe from gauge updates. I wonder if any actual web access experts could chime in?

This is the actual underlying problem, and don't think I'm not aware of it. Everything is inaccessible by default, and takes special code and knowledge to make it accessible, specialized knowledge that a majority of devs don't have. Heck, I'm swimming in this every day and I wouldn't consider myself an expert/not sure if my idea for making this particular component accessible would even be the right way (tm) though I'm pretty certain it would at least work.

Probably the long term answer is to just cure blindness. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: Canvas Gauges

#42

Post by hutzlibu »

ctoth wrote: post #20
hutzlibu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the best way to provide accessibility ... would be a alternative accessibility mode, triggered by the browser, where you get only the plain text-info with no fancy stuff. (I would love that for surfing with mobile browsers on bad connection, too)

Some reasons why this is a bad idea: Who implements it? Every individual website? then we're back where we started, not to mention that everybody's responsible means nobody's responsible, and consequently it won't happen. The web, for better or worse, is transitioning to an app delivery platform. While a text-only mode of some type makes sense for a document-oriented web, it holds little appeal for app developers or…

> Who implements it? Every individual website? then we're back where we started, not to mention that everybody's responsible means nobody's responsible, and consequently it won't happen.

Erm, as far as I know, that's the way the web is designed. The person who runs a site is responsible for it. And if this person does not care about accessibility , than that's the way it is.

But usually the owner want as much people as possible to be able to have access.

> While a text-only mode of some type makes sense for a document-oriented web, it holds little appeal for app developers or consumers.

And yes, of course I was refering to document-oriented web.

But apparently you got me totally wrong: I did not mean, "Text only" as in only text. I meant a proper formated html page. Just without fancy javascript and css-animations and so on. And while I actually like those, if they are well designed, I don't like them if I they are in the way of the content I want.

So I'd like a alternative mode. Easy to read on mobile as well on screen-readers etc. ...

Re: Canvas Gauges

#44

Post by swampthinker »

manyxcxi wrote: post #23
ctoth wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some reasons why this is a bad idea: Who implements it? Every individual website? then we're back where we started, not to mention that everybody's responsible means nobody's responsible, and consequently it won't happen. The web, for better or worse, is transitioning to an app delivery platform. While a text-only mode of some type makes sense for a document-oriented web, it holds little appeal for app developers or…

We have the ADA in America. It's part of the building code that you would have wheelchair ramps, wider stalls, hand rails at certain heights, and other accessibility features and every one of these rules must be implemented by anyone building or maintaining an open to the public/business space. Of course it should be on the individual implementer to make it work. I wouldn't want someone else taking my concept and run…

That's a great idea, if there were such a thing as overseas homebuilders and small shops like the internet. But the reality is that the internet exists outside of the US, and the ADA cannot tackle every website.

Re: Canvas Gauges

#45

Post by andrewstuart2 »

strictnein wrote: post #37
ctoth wrote: post #8

These do not appear to be accessible at all. If you use this on your site, I will not be able to read whatever you're trying to tell me, other than by making me look at source. Please don't do that. I know accessibility is hard, and the developers of this were just trying to make something that looks nice and gets the job done. Every time an inaccessible reusable {component, library, toolkit\, framework} is released,…

I'm the defacto accessibility guy at work, and I'm trying to think of a good way to present this type of data in an accessible way, but I'm having trouble. When the gauges are fixed, it would be pretty straight forward, but as the gauges change, I'm not sure of a good way to present that, especially when the gauges are moving quickly.

A. Allow the refresh rate of your gauges to be set, or disabled entirely and only refreshed manually, perhaps with a button (so your user's screen reader can finish at its own pace).

B. Use SVG, and something like D3 to build your graphs with a textual representation. I have no idea if ARIA works in SVG, but I know there are plenty of ways to label your data textually, even without aria-label, etc.

Unfortunately, there's probably no good way to convey information in the same way that visualization does for sighted users (being able to intuit trends from lines, for example), but even just having access to the aggregate numbers in a time series is better than nothing.

Re: Canvas Gauges

#46

Post by brudgers »

Mikhus wrote: post #9
ctoth wrote: post #8

These do not appear to be accessible at all. If you use this on your site, I will not be able to read whatever you're trying to tell me, other than by making me look at source. Please don't do that. I know accessibility is hard, and the developers of this were just trying to make something that looks nice and gets the job done. Every time an inaccessible reusable {component, library, toolkit\, framework} is released,…

Thank you, it is simply one of the most useful comments I (as developer) have for the moment. I will look forward to get a clue how to provide accessibility features in the next releases. Shame on me but this was exactly that feature I completely missed off.

One of the properties of governments is tending to take things seriously, whether or not this is a good thing is a discussion that someone else can have. Anyway, the US Federal web guidelines are the sort of thing that a serious organization can produce:

https://standards.usa.gov/getting-started/developers/

and so are the UK's:

https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/helping-people-to-use-your...

On the flip side, because Google penalizes sites for not looking pretty on mobile but not for inaccessibility, day to day we can tend to get caught up in its priorities rather than thinking about accessibility.

Good luck.

Re: Canvas Gauges

#47

Post by rudedogg »

samsolomon wrote: post #19

Gauges generally make for a poor UI. Unless you need real time information to help grasp a change in value, please consider another way to showcase information. Consider showing either a single number, or perhaps a bullet graph if targets, averages or historical values are important. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet_graph

I've done quite a bit of reading about digital dashboards, and agree. The first example in "Information Dashboard Design" is filled with gauges - and an explanation of why it's a bad design.

Edward Tufte's books are absolutely amazing, and filled with beautiful visualizations: https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi.

Stephen Few has several books on dashboards/charting that are really practical. See http://www.perceptualedge.com/examples.php for a taste.

Re: Canvas Gauges

#48

Post by oconnore »

strictnein wrote: post #37
ctoth wrote: post #8

These do not appear to be accessible at all. If you use this on your site, I will not be able to read whatever you're trying to tell me, other than by making me look at source. Please don't do that. I know accessibility is hard, and the developers of this were just trying to make something that looks nice and gets the job done. Every time an inaccessible reusable {component, library, toolkit\, framework} is released,…

I'm the defacto accessibility guy at work, and I'm trying to think of a good way to present this type of data in an accessible way, but I'm having trouble. When the gauges are fixed, it would be pretty straight forward, but as the gauges change, I'm not sure of a good way to present that, especially when the gauges are moving quickly.

When the "guage" is selected, you could play a series of audio ticks faster or slower as the measure changes?

Re: Canvas Gauges

#49

Post by daxelrod »

ctoth wrote: post #41
ctoth wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would probably use an invisible aria-live region coupled with some logic to not spew messages to it too frequently or a minimum change to actually autoread. Could also do something like providing checkboxes only visible to the screen reader to subscribe/unsubscribe from gauge updates. I wonder if any actual web access experts could chime in?

This is the actual underlying problem, and don't think I'm not aware of it. Everything is inaccessible by default, and takes special code and knowledge to make it accessible, specialized knowledge that a majority of devs don't have. Heck, I'm swimming in this every day and I wouldn't consider myself an expert/not sure if my idea for making this particular component accessible would even be the right way (tm) though I…

> Everything is inaccessible by default

In the early days of the web, when web pages were mostly text, and people weren't using tables for layout, things were a heck of a lot more accessible by default than they are now.

Re: Canvas Gauges

#50

Post by throwawayIndian »

coldtea wrote: post #38
throwawayIndian wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you don't like the "default skin" of the application. That should be pretty easy to replace with something that suits your taste. Consideration of "good" vs. "bad" of anything is essentially a trait of use vs. them propaganda. Better to skip it. Yes, buttons are good form of actionable design!

> Consideration of "good" vs. "bad" of anything is essentially a trait of use vs. them propaganda. Value judgements are both very, well, valuable AND not "propaganda". Some things ARE plainly worse than others for some uses or in general too. Nothing "propagandish" about aknowledging that. Even if you are wrong in your evaluation it's simply a mistake, not propaganda. Propaganda is a method you employ to convey thing…

I agree with you mostly.

Not with the anti-skeuomorphism tirade however. That is pure propaganda.

Anti-skeuomorphism picked up momentum only after Apple's iOS7 update -- around the time when Tim Cook took over and Apple (and its fanboys) moved away from purpose-inspired design to selling 'flat and clean' (supposedly purpose-oriented) design.

Whether it was good or bad move for them eventually is another subject altogether.

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