Development of Tactile Graph Generation Web Application Using R Statistics Software Environment

We have developed software that uses the R statistics software environment to automatically generate tactile graphs—i.e. graphs that can be read by blind people using their sense of touch. We released this software as a Web application to make it available to anyone, from anywhere. This Web application can automatically generate images for tactile graphs from numerical data in a CSV file. It is currently able to generate four types of graph—scatter plots, line graphs, bar charts and pie charts. This paper describes the Web application’s functions, operating procedures and the results of evaluation experiments. key words: blind people, tactile graphs, R statistical software, Web accessibility, tactile legibility