Making ggplot2 Accessible

Abstract

The BrailleR package for R provides improved access to the R system for blind and visually-impaired users. For example, the VI() function from the BrailleR package generates a text description of an R plot. In combination with screen reader software, this text description allows a blind R user to obtain information about plots that have been generated in R. However, prior to the work described in this talk, only a small set of traditional R plots (scatterplots, histograms, and boxplots) were supported and adding support for new types of plots required bespoke code for each new case. This talk will describe how support for ggplot2 plots has been added to BrailleR. The ggplot2 graphics system is a very popular way to produce plots in R, so it represents an opportunity to improve the accessibility of a large and important part of the R ecosystem. Furthermore, the design of ggplot2 presents an opportunity to add support for a wide range of plots much more efficiently and elegantly than for traditional R plots.