Make your visualizations keyboard-accessible.
Many users who encounter an interactive data visualization will navigate it using a mouse, but many users will use a keyboard or other assistive technologies instead of a mouse. When designing an interactive data visualization, we must ensure that they are keyboard accessible.
Test your data visualization or dashboard with a keyboard to make sure it behaves as expected. The table below from WebAIM’s article Keyboard Accessibility outlines the most common online interactions and the corresponding keystrokes. Use these keystrokes to test your visualization with a keyboard.
Interaction | Keystrokes |
---|---|
Navigate to interactive elements |
|
Link |
|
Button |
|
Checkbox |
|
Radio buttons |
|
Select (dropdown) menu |
|
Autocomplete |
|
Dialog |
|
Slider |
|
Menu bar |
|
Tab panel |
|
‘Tree’ menu |
|
Scroll |
|
For more detailed guidance on keyboard accessibility, see WebAIM’s article Keyboard Accessibility.