ParaCharts

Appearance

Accessibility Features ​

ParaCharts is designed with accessibility at its core. This page explains the practical controls users can use to make charts easier to perceive and navigate.

What you can do (quick) ​

  • Enable/disable sonification: press s when the chart is focused.
  • Toggle self-voicing (text-to-speech): press v when the chart is focused.
  • Query a focused point for a detailed description: press Q.
  • Access the latest AI-generated summary in the ARIA live region (announced automatically when updated).

Screen reader behavior ​

ParaCharts provides semantic markup and ARIA attributes so screen readers can announce chart summaries, updates, and focused points. When a chart or element is focused, the chart updates an ARIA live region with a short description.

Practical tips:

  • If you want a quick overview, focus the chart and wait for the AI summary to be announced.
  • To hear details for a data point, focus the point and press Q.
  • If announcements are too frequent, toggle self-voicing off or reduce live-region verbosity in your app settings.

Sonification (audio representation of data) ​

Sonification translates data values into sound to give an immediate sense of trends and outliers.

How to use it:

  • Focus the chart and press s to toggle sonification mode.
  • Use the arrow keys to step through points and hear their values.
  • From the start of the series, press the left arrow to play points in sequence.

What to expect:

  • Pitch generally maps to value (higher = higher pitch).
  • Additional audio cues may indicate series boundaries or outliers.

Self-voicing and AI descriptions ​

Self-voicing mode uses the browser's speech synthesis to read chart announcements and AI summaries automatically.

  • Toggle: press v while the chart is focused.
  • While enabled, AI summaries and important announcements are spoken automatically.
  • For a point-level description, focus the point and press Q to request more detail.

Troubleshooting (audio & screen reader) ​

  • No sound: ensure your device volume and browser audio permissions are enabled.
  • Announcements not heard: check that a screen reader or self-voicing mode is active and the browser focus is on the chart.
  • Sonification too fast/slow: look for playback speed controls in the control panel (or use keyboard shortcuts if provided).