Generating Relational Charts with Accessibility for Visually-Impaired Users

A computer-implemented method comprising:

• receiving, from a client device, a request for a displayable chart, wherein persistent storage contains data values and metadata defining the displayable chart, wherein the displayable chart includes one or more symbols, and wherein the symbols each contain a respective plurality of symbol segments;
• in response to the request, generating markup language representing the displayable chart, wherein generating the markup language involves, for each respective symbol of the one or more symbols:
• (i) generating a block of the markup language representing the respective symbol, wherein the block includes a unit of metadata that defines a label for the respective symbol, and (ii) based on data values, generating sub-blocks of the markup language that are embedded within the block, wherein the sub-blocks represent symbol segments of the respective symbol, and wherein each of the sub-blocks is associated with one or more units of the metadata that define one or more dimensions of a viewable layout for a corresponding symbol segment of the symbol segments;
• and
• transmitting, to the client device, the markup language representing the displayable chart, wherein the markup language is usable to render the displayable chart on a user interface.

An article of manufacture including a non-transitory computer-readable medium, having stored thereon program instructions that, upon execution by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising:

• receiving, from a client device, a request for a displayable chart, wherein persistent storage contains data values and metadata defining the displayable chart, wherein the displayable chart includes one or more symbols, and wherein the symbols each contain a respective plurality of symbol segments;
• in response to the request, generating markup language representing the displayable chart, wherein generating the markup language involves, for each respective symbol of the one or more symbols:
• (i) generating a block of the markup language representing the respective symbol, wherein the block includes a unit of the metadata that defines a label for the respective symbol, and (ii) based on the data values, generating sub-blocks of the markup language that are embedded within the block, wherein the sub-blocks represent symbol segments of the respective symbol, and wherein each of the sub-blocks is associated with one or more units of the metadata that define one or more dimensions of a viewable layout for a corresponding symbol segment of the symbol segments;
• and
• transmitting, to the client device, the markup language representing the displayable chart, wherein the markup language is usable to render the displayable chart on a user interface.