With GIS workflows and mapping products increasingly moving online, as GIS practitioners, our work has the potential to reach more people than ever before. With this, comes an increased need to thoughtfully design our maps and applications with this wider audience in mind. Incorporating accessibility best practices makes our work usable by all and better for everyone. In this blog, I’ll share how I incorporated accessibility concepts in my course as a first-time adjunct professor and certified beginner in accessibility in GIS.
Background
A little about me, I worked at Esri for five years as a technical consultant, supporting customer projects, curating data and maps, configuring web and mobile applications, and leading technical workshops. I left Esri three years ago to pursue a master’s degree full time at The George Washington University (GW) with the intention of teaching GIS at the university level. Last fall I did just that and taught my first GIS course as an adjunct professor at GW. The course was Cartography & Geovisualization, a popular elective open to both graduate and undergraduate students focused on advanced cartographic design and creating effective mapping products both online and offline.
I was very excited to make the course my own and incorporate content that, based on my industry experience, was important to know to be successful in a GIS role. One of the topics I wanted to add to the course was accessibility in GIS.
Why Accessibility?
Accessibility in GIS was not a topic I remember being introduced to as an undergraduate student. I remember one time as a GIS intern proudly showing my supervisor a chart I made after painstaking data analysis and he said, “Looks great! I’m colorblind though and can’t tell the difference between these colors.” It was a red to green color scheme. It totally caught me off guard. The sinking feeling that I had missed an important design consideration, making my product largely inaccessible to him, has stuck with me.
While it was discussed in my various GIS roles, up until last year, I had never felt confident in my ability to clearly articulate and implement accessibility best practices in GIS. I wanted my students to leave my class feeling confident that they had an idea of what they may be expected to consider when creating professional, accessible mapping products.
Plan of Action
My first step was to do some research. I knew that looking at Esri’s accessibility resources would be a good place start (and I promise I’m not just saying that because I worked at Esri and am writing a blog for Esri and because Esri is standing behind me right now). Esri had a really helpful learning plan called Digital Accessibility Fundamentals which included three online courses: Introduction to Digital Accessibility in GIS, Designing GIS Applications with Accessibility, and Applying Accessibility in ArcGIS App Builders. Each course ended with additional accessibility resources both within GIS and more broadly. These topics included the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 including Section 508, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and much more.
Once I had identified what seemed like the primary introductory topics, I set out to create a lecture on accessibility. I defined key terms such as accessibility and inclusive design, shared important accessibility laws and standards most relevant to my students in the US, and identified key best practices that all GIS folks should know about accessibility in GIS, such as utilizing text alternatives, appropriate colors and contrast, and proper semantic structure.
After creating the lecture, I wanted to make sure my students would have opportunities to incorporate accessibility best practices in their work and that this would be expected and required from them in their graded assignments.
Here I share an example of a real assignment I give my students where they are tasked with configuring a web application in ArcGIS Online:
- Choose a story you want to tell with your data
- Publish a feature layer from ArcGIS Pro with at least one data layer
- Create a web map following the guidelines in our Basic Checklist
- Create a web application using ArcGIS Instant Apps, Dashboards, or Experience Builder
- Include your web map and at least 3 other elements (lists, charts, images, etc.)
- Accessibility
- Accessible color scheme in web map
- Accessible color theme in app elements
- Summary in item description for all items participating in your app
- Alt text/name for all elements in your app (concise, doesn’t repeat text already in the element)
- Include a splash screen with information (2-4 sentences) explaining purpose of app
- **Extra Credit if you configure a data table download option**
- Share all elements of your app (feature layers(s), map, app) with Organization or Public
- Submit URL
Image: Utilizing Accessibility Insights for Web browser extension to view alternative text / accessible names in an ArcGIS Dashboard
Final Thoughts
Adding a lecture and incorporating a handful of key accessibility requirements in my assignments felt like a manageable (dare I say accessible) first step for me as a new adjunct professor. I saw a noticeable increase in quality of maps and applications from my students, and I now feel more confident in my own ability as a GIS professional to deliver more effective, beautiful, and accessible mapping products. I encourage all GIS educators to incorporate GIS accessibility fundamentals and best practices in their courses.
Maya O'Brien
mayakobrien@gmail.com
