“A metaphor for good information design is a map.”
| Edward Tufte
Creating digital interactive maps that are accessible not only ensures compliance with accessibility standards but also provides equal access to information and empowers all members of your target audiences to interact with and understand complex data visualizations.
Data specialists who develop maps for national or regional health data visualization may already be familiar with the general techniques of making web pages and documents accessible and discover accessibility challenges specific to maps in web pages. This document provides specific guidance on making maps in web pages accessible, both technical accessibility in support of WCAG 2.1 AA and 2.2 AA conformance and functional accessibility in support of EN 301 549 conformance.
This guide assumes the reader is familiar with WCAG and its general principles: this document focuses mainly on choropleth maps that are embedded in web pages and the web pages that contain them.
Read the full “Creating Accessible Interactive Maps for the Web” Guide by David Berman and his team (updated February 2025)
The Guide is in Google Docs format in order with commenting rights for all, to encourage you to help us continuously improve this document.
Deep thanks to CIHI for providing excellent questions, samples, and feedback.