QUARTZ: Qualitative Understanding via Accessible Representation and Visualization

Abstract

Qualitative data visualizations -- concept maps, network graphs, Sankey diagrams, and coding stripes -- are integral to research practice, yet remain entirely inaccessible to blind and low-vision (BLV) researchers. While visualization has seen advanced multimodal solutions for quantitative charts, qualitative visualizations, and their non-linear, semantically rich structures have received no attention. We present QUARTZ, a web-based system that provides screen-reader-accessible, multimodal representations of qualitative data visualizations. Using the Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation (RITE) method, we conducted a user study with 8 BLV participants who completed 12 tasks across four visualization types. Our findings expose accessibility barriers unique to qualitative visualizations -- non-linear navigation breakdowns and semantic comprehension gaps absent from quantitative chart research---and document how iterative co-design with BLV users resolved them. We contribute empirical evidence and design guidelines for an underexplored visualization domain, advancing the infrastructure BLV researchers need to participate independently in qualitative inquiry.

24 pages, accepted at ASSETS 2026