Title: Accessible Images, Diagrams, and Charts Questions and How To's
Course: Web Accessibility MOOC for Educators > Section: Creating Accessible Images, Diagrams, and Charts

Since I work at a system of 13 college's higher education administrative building, fortunately or unfortunately I often am called upon to make public reports accessible. And if you work in the education field you know how educational professionals love to include charts, graphs and images in our reports. The first 50 charts and graphs I alt tagged and created long descriptions for were time consuming since I was creating the alt tags and descriptions in my office with just the report and my basic understanding of what the chart or graph represented. This was a laborious process and I was not a "happy camper".

This is a short tale of realizing we are alone when making images, diagrams and charts accessible. After trying unsuccessfully for a half-hour to describe a chart reflecting data on developmental education courses, student success in a college level course and time to completion, I journeyed to the 2nd floor to the internal reporting departement. I asked the data analysts to tell me what the chart was showing. He launched into a short 3 minute description. I found my solution. I used the recorder on my smartphone to record his explanation and then transcribed it into the description. Eureka! I had found a solution for my struggles by willing to try something different.

Have you had to create long descriptions for images, diagrams and charts? How have you created contextualized descriptions? In this discussion create a short paragraph describing how you have accomplished creating contextualized long descriptions for images, diagrams and charts. Also if you have a great website which details how to make richer contextualized descriptions, please share that as well.