[html5] making standards-compliant charts

[Matt Bonner]

Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote:

> Matt wrote:
> calling charts graphical to me seems overly simplified.

> I don't really see how the presence of characters makes this a simplification.

Well, to me, saying a chart is "graphical" implies that it is *only* graphical, 
when clearly there are also textual elements in many charts, as your test
implies. Rendering chart text in an image means bigger, slower pages, ugly
zooming and little hope for assistive technology to extract meaning.


> Failing that, create a separate page and add a visible link to it.

That was my thinking, I just wasn't sure how that would be seen from an
accessibility standpoint.

thanks,
Matt


----- Original Message ----
> From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis <bhawkeslewis at googlemail.com>
> To: Matt Bonner <mateubonet at yahoo.com>
> Cc: Ian Hickson <ian at hixie.ch>; Help at lists.whatwg.org
> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 4:14:05 PM
> Subject: Re: [html5] making standards-compliant charts
> 
> On 30/12/08 00:05, Matt Bonner wrote:
> > I understand of course what you mean by saying that graphs and charts
> > are graphical, because they try to present data in a more visual format.
> > But, most 2-axis charts have textual and numeric data, including axis
> > labels, axis values, legends and other elements.  So, calling them graphical
> > to me seems overly simplified.
> 
> I don't really see how the presence of characters makes this a simplification.
> 
> Here's a test: remove everything from the chart that isn't characters. Then 
> linearize the characters. Read them out. If you can't easily derive the 
> editorial intent of the chart from that sequence, then that's a good sign that 
> the meaning of the chart is highly dependent on the visual arrangement of the 
> characters in combination with "pure" graphical elements.
> 
> > Including the table on the same page could be a possibility sometimes,
> > but rather cumbersome for many page layouts.
> 
> Failing that, create a separate page and add a visible link to it.
> 
> --
> Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis