Create Tactile Graphics

Sometimes alt text might just not be enough, you can reach out to Disability Resources for Students (or the equivalent office at your university or college campus) to print out the braille of some visualizations. For example, the image below is important to understand clustering. We could rely on alt text, but the tactile experience will augment the experience for blind students.

This is screenshot of a cluster view of some dots. There are dots of 4 colors (red, blue, yellow, and green). Dots of the same color are clustered together. This would be communicated more effectively with a braille artifact.

To create the braille artifacts, you should:

Have a folder of the images that you need to print out. Ideally, the image will be in svg format.
Contact Disability Resources for Students indicating that you need help with tactile graphics.They can help facilitate this process.
However, notice that it is expensive and time-consuming to print out tactile graphics, so it typically makes sense to select only images that are essential to understand foundational concepts. Note that in CSE547 we approached DRS one quarter in advance - still, not all tactile graphics could be delivered on time during the course the following quarter. Planning early is critical. This delay might be even longer at other universities.