Can we create accessible charts with Microsoft Excel? a review of possibilities and limits, with a special focus to users with low vision

Abstract

Introduction: statistical charts are key to data literacy and essential in the process of communicating abstract science concepts and relationships that are difficult to understand through other representations. These types of visualization can present numerous challenges for users with low vision, an often-overlooked group despite its enormous prevalence. To evaluate MS Excel’s as an accessible authoring tool analyzing ATAG 2.0 compliance, and its capability to create accessible charts according to a set of heuristic indicators proposed by the authors. Methodology: evaluate a) the compliance of Microsoft Excel software as an authoring tool with ATAG 2.0 guidelines; and b) the compliance of MS Excel-generated charts with a domain heuristic set. For the heuristic evaluation, apart from the original MS Excel chart (XSLX), three exported versions (DOCX, HTML and SVG) of the same chart were created using all the accessibility features available in the software. Results: regarding ATAG compliance, 48 desired accessibility features applying to MS Excel have been identified and the software meet just 26 of them (54.17%). Regarding heuristic evaluation, the four versions of the chart present a percentage of compliance with the heuristics equal to or greater than 66.66%. The versions that have obtained the best scores are MS Excel original and MS Word exported charts with 72.2% of indicators achieved, followed by SVG and HTML exported charts, both with 66.66%. Even though MS Excel does not meet a good part of the ATAG 2.0 success criteria, it has been possible to create charts with a good level of accessibility following the suggested heuristic principles