Reflection- Visualisation

Challenge and Selection

I am a Digital Accessibility Specialist. ‘Digital Accessibility’ refers to the practice of making all sorts of Digital Content accessible to a diverse set of users including people with disabilities. One important branch of Digital Accessibility is ‘Document accessibility’.

These days we all create Digital Documents such as Word, PPT, InDesign and usually convert them into PDF. Just like any other Digital Content, PDF Documents should also be made accessible. For example I must ensure that this reflection paper can be read as easily by a sighted user as by a user with visual impairment. To make that happen I have to take care of several points, and one of them is ‘reading order’. A blind user relies on a Screen reader ( e.g. JAWS, NVDA) to read a document. An essay, letter etc are usually written in a linear manner (i.e. from top to bottom, each line starting from Left to Right), so it’s easy for a screen reader to read the screen in that flow. But at times we come across smart art graphics, flowcharts, workflows etc that allows a user to take a quick glance at the described content. A Screenreader is a smart technology but we still cannot rely on it to read a smart art graphic correctly, the reason being its inability to determine the correct reading order. PDF editing softwares comes with an in-built functionality to fix the reading order, but this process is complex and time-consuming. Therefore I needed a tool that could simplify the cumbersome process of fixing the reading order of a PDF. I used visualisation as it was the best way to bring my entire team to the same page since the developers and some of the stakeholders didn’t know much about PDF remediation (process of fixing PDF accessibility issues) . Through visualisation it became much easier to convey the entire process, current output and desired output.

Application

I began by picking up a sample input file with a smart art graphic, to show the current steps that we follow for PDF remediation using a flow diagram(given below). I used screenshots of the actual output after every stage of the current process as the visual order of the content could be best described using a visual. Next it was important to indicate after which stage exactly we needed intervention. Our current process involves inserting a file (image 1 in the flow diagram) then tagging the content either manually or using the auto-tag option of the PDF editing tool (image 2 of the flow diagram). Once all the content is tagged we check the reading order (image 3 of the flow diagram) if it’s not correct we drag and drop those tags in the correct order in the PDF editing tool (image 4) itself to fix the order (image 6). But this drag & drop method often results in disturbance in the reading order of other elements and tag structure getting messed up. On top of that it takes on average one hour to fix one  medium complexity PDF page and a skilled person to do this job. Therefore after the auto-tag stage we needed a tool that would allow us to bypass the drag & drop method, providing an alternative which is simple to use and could be used by anyone (image 5). A tool where we could give a number to each tagged piece of text, and those tags could be rearranged automatically as per the given numbers.

Insight & Approach

After this exercise I learnt how easily we can simplify a problem statement. I’m neither a designer nor a developer. I may not have the required knowledge to create the above-mentioned software or even its prototype but me and my peers are the end users, and hence it was essential for us to clearly communicate our requirements to someone who has almost zero knowledge of our work. We didn't want too much subjectivity.  Visualisation helped us in clearly conveying those requirements as well to get feedback on the feasibility of the proposed solutions in an efficient manner.

My team has only 10 members, and we get plenty of PDF remediation projects. Some of the PDF documents are lengthy and can have upto 500 pages. When we have to meet strict deadlines we don’t have any other option but to allocate more than five resources to a PDF project, which prevents us from taking up other big projects due to a lack of resources. With the help of the tool we are saving a lot of time on client projects as well as time spent on remediating internal PDFs. This is the first time I have used visualisation but I’m pretty sure that I’d be using it more often from now onwards ! This time I used it to simplify the problem statement and to get clarity on the feasibility of the proposed  solutions. Next time I want to use it in situations where requirements are unclear. Where me and my team could brainstorm together to come up with ideas that we would depict through visualisation.

Note- The input PDF file used in the flow diagram is a substitute of the actual file used during the activity  and has been taken from

the design thinking course itself to avoid any copyright issues.


Reflection- Visualisation Challenge and Selection I am a Digital Accessibility Specialist . ‘ Digital Accessibility ’ refers to the practice of making all sorts of Digital Content accessible to a diverse set of users including people with disabilities . One important branch of Digital Accessibility is ‘ Document accessibility ’ . These days we all create Digital Documents such as Word , PPT , InDesign and usually convert them into PDF . Just like any other Digital Content , PDF Documents should also be made accessible . For example I must ensure that this reflection paper can be read as easily by a sighted user as by a user with visual impairment . To make that happen I have to take care of several points , and one of them is ‘ reading order ’ . A blind user relies on a Screen reader ( e.g. JAWS , NVDA ) to read a document . An essay , letter etc are usually written in a linear manner ( i.e. from top to bottom , each line starting from Left to Right ) , so it ’s easy for a screen reader to read the screen in that flow . But at times we come across smart art graphics , flowcharts , workflows etc that allows a user to take a quick glance at the described content . A Screenreader is a smart technology but we still can not rely on it to read a smart art graphic correctly , the reason being its inability to determine the correct reading order . PDF editing softwares comes with an in - built functionality to fix the reading order , but this process is complex and time - consuming . Therefore I needed a tool that could simplify the cumbersome process of fixing the reading order of a PDF . I used visualisation as it was the best way to bring my entire team to the same page since the developers and some of the stakeholders did n’t know much about PDF remediation ( process of fixing PDF accessibility issues ) . Through visualisation it became much easier to convey the entire process , current output and desired output . Application I began by picking up a sample input file with a smart art graphic , to show the current steps that we follow for PDF remediation using a flow diagram(given below ) . I used screenshots of the actual output after every stage of the current process as the visual order of the content could be best described using a visual . Next it was important to indicate after which stage exactly we needed intervention . Our current process involves inserting a file ( image 1 in the flow diagram ) then tagging the content either manually or using the auto - tag option of the PDF editing tool ( image 2 of the flow diagram ) . Once all the content is tagged we check the reading order ( image 3 of the flow diagram ) if it ’s not correct we drag and drop those tags in the correct order in the PDF editing tool ( image 4 ) itself to fix the order ( image 6 ) . But this drag & drop method often results in disturbance in the reading order of other elements and tag structure getting messed up . On top of that it takes on average one hour to fix one medium complexity PDF page and a skilled person to do this job . Therefore after the auto - tag stage we needed a tool that would allow us to bypass the drag & drop method , providing an alternative which is simple to use and could be used by anyone ( image 5 ) . A tool where we could give a number to each tagged piece of text , and those tags could be rearranged automatically as per the given numbers . Insight & Approach After this exercise I learnt how easily we can simplify a problem statement . I ’m neither a designer nor a developer . I may not have the required knowledge to create the above - mentioned software or even its prototype but me and my peers are the end users , and hence it was essential for us to clearly communicate our requirements to someone who has almost zero knowledge of our work . We did n't want too much subjectivity . Visualisation helped us in clearly conveying those requirements as well to get feedback on the feasibility of the proposed solutions in an efficient manner . My team has only 10 members , and we get plenty of PDF remediation projects . Some of the PDF documents are lengthy and can have upto 500 pages . When we have to meet strict deadlines we do n’t have any other option but to allocate more than five resources to a PDF project , which prevents us from taking up other big projects due to a lack of resources . With the help of the tool we are saving a lot of time on client projects as well as time spent on remediating internal PDFs . This is the first time I have used visualisation but I ’m pretty sure that I ’d be using it more often from now onwards ! This time I used it to simplify the problem statement and to get clarity on the feasibility of the proposed solutions . Next time I want to use it in situations where requirements are unclear . Where me and my team could brainstorm together to come up with ideas that we would depict through visualisation . Note- The input PDF file used in the flow diagram is a substitute of the actual file used during the activity and has been taken from the design thinking course itself to avoid any copyright issues .