Visualizations as Part of Accessible Conferences

Abstract

Access to information is a fundamental right and enables independent living and participation in social and economic life. But not everyone has full access to information. This applies particularly to people with learning difficulties or cognitive disabilities. Especially at conferences, congresses or seminars it is often not easy for them to follow the content of the lectures and presentations. Hand drawn visualizations which are easy to understand can help to present complex topics much more understandable and to sum up the relevant content or message in a nutshell. Conferences that are accessible to people with disabilities are also accessible to many more audiences, like people who are not fluent in the language, educationally disadvantaged people or people with different learning styles [1]. So the aim of visualizations is to make spoken or written text easy to understand and accessible for people with learning difficulties or cognitive disabilities and other participants of conferences. This paper presents a methodology of visualization for representing information and contents in a conference setting in an easier and more understandable way. First of all, the types of images and their level of abstraction will be explained in this paper, as well as the motives for and the functions of visualizations. Furthermore, examples from real life and finally the impact of visualizations for people with learning difficulties or cognitive disabilities will be discussed.