Standards for online graphs

A government organisation in New Zealand wants to create standards for graphs, especially online graphs. Until now, we haven't been able to find any existing standards, so we will have to start from scratch.

Standards for graphs published on paper would be a good starting point. I assume that some organisations - hundreds? tens? two or three? - already have standards for print graphs. I'm not sure where an outsider would find them, however.

For the purposes of this article, shall we rashly assume that any responsible organisation publishing statistical, financial or scientific information does have standards for print graphs? They would be found in the inhouse style guide. (Dreams are free.)

Why we need standards

As I'm sure you have noticed, many a graph that looks OK on paper is simply not OK online. It is illegible or too wide or too long and almost without exception inaccessible.

Those who edit or approve web content shouldn't have to use their intuition about whether a graph is acceptable. Only when standards are set can quality assurance take place. That's a truism (doh!) often forgotten.

Honestly, most organisations just lob their print graphs on to a web site without a second thought. Or that's the impression I get. Hence the mass of awful graphs on web sites and intranets.

If you are creating graphs, best think about online publication right from the start.

If you are managing web content or intranet content that includes graphs, setting standards will save your authors a lot of grief.

Setting standards: a team task

No one person holds all the answers. When setting standards, expertise will be required in graphs, usability, accessibility, IT, knowledge management, legal issues, web design and communications.

Ten minutes' thought generated all these issues around graphs. I'm sure there are many others. The challenge is to create an infrastructure that makes excellent graphs the norm. Then the list of standards can be quite short.

Why all these experts must have their say

My division of labour is somewhat arbitrary. In real life, one person may have authority in several of these fields. For example, an experienced technical writer plus a usability expert may cover six topics between them. Still, this list is a starting point, something on which to build.

Governance: setting standards, review of standards, workflow for online graphs, QA procedures...

Graphs: appropriate format for type of information (line graph, bar, pie-chart etc), accuracy, amount of information per graph...

Usability: size of image file, legibility of all words and detail, width and height, caption size, cross-platform usability...

Accessibility: type of file (jpg, gif, tif, pdf etc.), contrast, colours that work for colour-blind readers, all browsers, text description of graphs...

IT: permissible (non-proprietary) software for creating graphs (e.g. Excel), optimising graphic files and pages for rapid download, creating dynamic graphs, image maps, links to full-size graphs and text descriptions...

Knowledge management: where graph files will be stored on the web site or intranet, position of text descriptions, database, naming of files, metadata...

Legal issues: copyright, accessibility, brands, privacy...

Web design: code validation, placement of graphs, integration with look and feel...

Communications: plain language, branding, model pages, communicating standards, training authors...

Tell me more

I'd love to hear from others who have started thinking about standards for online graphs. All I have done here is start a discussion.

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