Using SAS/GRAPH to Create Visualizations That Also Support Tactile and Auditory Interaction

Concepts, ideas, and analyses are commonly presented as graphics that are optimized for visual consumption. Does that mean blind students and professionals are out of luck? Not anymore. This presentation demonstrates best practices for multimodal visualizations for blind users of the iPad and other touchscreen mobile devices. Multimodal visualizations allow blind users to interactively explore visualizations through touch, discover details through sound, and comprehend the essence of the visualizations without vision. The presentation explores how to use SAS/GRAPH ® to create data visualizations that are optimized for access by blind users. For brevity, this paper will focus on scatter plots. However, the live presentation will demonstrate best practices for a variety of common charts, plots, and maps. We will demonstrate how to create multimodal visualizations using SAS macros that encapsulate the best practices. Lastly, we will explore how an auditory channel can improve the usability of visualizations for sighted users.