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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 a wide range of visualization types in both ggplot2 and Base R:

Basic Plot Types

Plot Type ggplot2 Base R
Bar charts geom_bar(), geom_col() barplot()
Grouped/Dodged bars position = "dodge" beside = TRUE
Stacked bars position = "stack" beside = FALSE
Histograms geom_histogram() hist()
Scatter plots geom_point() plot()
Line plots geom_line() plot(type = "l"), lines()
Box plots geom_boxplot() boxplot()
Heatmaps geom_tile() image()
Density/Smooth geom_smooth(), geom_density() lines(density())

Advanced Plot Types

Plot Type ggplot2 Base R
Faceted plots facet_wrap(), facet_grid() par(mfrow/mfcol) + loops
Multi-panel layouts patchwork package par(mfrow), par(mfcol)
Multi-layered plots Multiple geom_* layers Sequential plot calls

See vignette("plot-types") for detailed examples of each plot type.

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

Learning more