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Make data accessible

By designing data and data visualisations in an accessible way we are making things better for everyone, and we will have a better chance of using our data analysis to influence change.

Guidelines

Some guidelines to follow when visualising data:

  • Don’t use colour alone to visualise information. Roughly 4.5% of the population suffer from sort of colour deficiency. Consider limiting your colour choices to four, and using direct labels or varied symbols and line styles
  • Test your colours for accessibility. This includes testing the contrast of text on block colours, for example data labels on charts
  • Label data directly rather than using data legends
  • Keep it simple and pick the most simple chart for your visualisation
  • Provide good alt text to images and charts. Good alt text should describe the information not the picture and focus on the key thing the chart communicates
  • Test and iterate. Test how your visualisation looks on mobile or zoomed in. Consider what the user can see on a particular viewpoint - for example if there is too much white space
  • Where possible, provide a link to the underlying data source as a table or sheet. Be aware that read only access to a Google Sheet doesn’t always unlock accessibility features so consider sharing sheets with edit permissions

Resources

Useful resources on data accessibility

Accessibility resources

This page was last reviewed on 14 August 2024. It needs to be reviewed again on 14 February 2025 .
This page was set to be reviewed before 14 February 2025. This might mean the content is out of date.