maidr

Overview

maidr (Multimodal Access and Interactive Data Representation) makes data visualizations accessible to users with visual impairments. It converts ggplot2 and Base R plots into interactive, accessible HTML/SVG formats with keyboard navigation, screen reader support, and sonification.

The package provides two main functions:

• show() displays an interactive accessible plot in RStudio Viewer or browser
• save_html() exports a plot as a standalone HTML file

Installation

# Install from CRAN (coming soon)
install.packages("maidr")

# Or install development version from GitHub
pak::pak("xability/r-maidr")

# Alternative: using pacman (auto-installs if missing)
pacman::p_load_gh("xability/r-maidr")

Usage

ggplot2

library(maidr)
library(ggplot2)

p <- ggplot(mpg, aes(x = class)) +
  geom_bar(fill = "steelblue") +
  labs(title = "Vehicle Classes", x = "Class", y = "Count")

# Display interactive accessible plot
show(p)

# Or save to file
save_html(p, "vehicle_classes.html")

Base R

library(maidr)

# Create plot first
barplot(
  table(mtcars$cyl),
  main = "Cars by Cylinder Count",
  xlab = "Cylinders",
  ylab = "Count"
)

# Then call show() without arguments
show()

Supported plot types

maidr supports common visualization types in both ggplot2 and Base R:

• Bar charts (simple, grouped, stacked)
• Histograms
• Scatter plots
• Line plots
• Box plots
• Heatmaps

Accessibility features

• Keyboard navigation - explore data points using arrow keys
• Screen reader support - full ARIA labels and live announcements
• Sonification - hear data patterns through sound
• Text descriptions - automatic statistical summaries

Getting help

• Report bugs or request features at GitHub Issues
• Read the documentation at the package website

Learning more

• vignette("getting-started", package = "maidr") for an introduction
• vignette("plot-types", package = "maidr") for supported visualizations
• vignette("shiny-integration", package = "maidr") for Shiny apps