How to make flowcharts and tables accessible on Google Sites?

July 27, 2020 2:01 PM

I am putting together a Google Site for an internal client and they have a lot of tables and many images of process maps/flowchats/org charts. I'd like for them to all be accessible, but am having trouble figuring out how to do it well.

My clients do not want me to write out the flowcharts steps as in this example of good flowchart accessibility (at the bottom of the page). Would a linked PDF work? Should I link to another page or document with the written out description? I would really like this site to be accessible so all of our employees can access all of the information. Caveats: writing anything beyond basic HTML to embed onto a page is blocked by my company.

As for tables, Sites doesn't have a native table creator. I know how to make tables accessible with HTML, but using HTML means that my clients wouldn't be able to change any information within the tables on their own. Are tables accessible in PDFs? Would an embedded Sheets or Slides document be better?

I'm trying to find an accessibility subject matter expert within my org to consult about this, but it seems that this is a blind spot at my organization.

I've read through WCAG 2.1 but it doesn't directly address flow charts or PDF'd tables.

If you've successfully dealt with these issues before, I'd appreciate any tips or links!

posted by Stoof to Technology (4 answers total)

Best answer: I haven't done this specific thing, but PDF *can* be accessible if the original document used in its production is. There was a while when I used to dread anything available in PDF because it was a crapshoot, but thankfully that seems to be a bit better now.

Basically you need to make sure that the PDF is properly tagged for accessibility. This would include checking that the tables are properly labeled with headers and such where appropriate. This can be done using Acrobat and presumably other PDF authoring tools as well.
posted by Alensin at 2:06 PM on July 27, 2020

Also regarding flowcharts, is there a particular reason your client doesn't want you to copy the steps out? It's hard for me to imagine a less pleasant way to convey information accessibility-wise, though in fairness I haven't seen many accessible examples to begin with.
posted by Alensin at 2:14 PM on July 27, 2020

Here's a good roundup of best practices for accessible data visualization.

Don't use PDF here. It's pretty hard to tag a complex graphic in a way that is accessible, and often the result ends up technically meeting WCAG but barely usable in practice. My first choice would be a direct link to the written description in HTML, second would be putting it in a downloadable word document (locked if relevant), third would be google docs.
posted by veery at 2:44 PM on July 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks for the great advice.

I decided to put descriptive links under each image of a table or flowchart. The links under the tables lead to PDFs that are tagged and ordered properly. (Purdue University has some tutorials on how to do this.) The links under the flowcharts lead to a Google Doc with a text breakdown of the chart.

Next step is to see if I can get some in-depth formal training around this, and also I need bring my colleagues up to speed so we're all implementing accessibility measures consistently and correctly.
posted by Stoof at 2:16 PM on July 28, 2020