Dashboard navigation using a screen reader

Both Power BI and Tableau have set up ways to make their charts, graphs and tables accessible to users of assistive technology, each with their own proprietary steps for interacting with content.

While screen reader users are accustomed to navigating through the cells of a data table using Control plus Alt plus the directional arrow keys, as is the case with NVDA, the method needed for Power BI or Tableau is different.

Each of these allow one to navigate to a chart, graph or table, hit the enter key and then navigate with directional arrow keys alone, in the case of tables. Where charts or graphs are present, there are ways to convert those into standard tables that can then be navigated and read using directional arrow keys.

And for each of the various elements that may appear on a web page, one navigates to it, hits the enter key to interact with it and then the Escape key to move focus away from it again, not too different than some screen reader users may have come to interact with complex math equations. One might encounter several charts, graphs and tables on a web page, navigate to each, place screen reader focus upon one, take in content then escape out of it to move on to the next one.

For more detailed information on interacting with these two company’s data representations check out the following resources. 

Consume Power BI reports by using accessibility features 

Navigate Visualizations with Assistive Technology

The above two links are provided to assist you with accessibly interacting with either of these technologies. If you need further assistance using assistive technology to interact with this data, please contact @email and we will be glad to help out.