GeoVisA11y

GeoVisA11y is an open-source system for interactive and accessible map visualization.

This repository contains the code for the GeoVisA11y prototype, which is our CHI'26 paper titled GeoVisA11y: AI-based Geovisualization QA System for Screen-Reader Users by Chu Li, Rock Pang, Arnavi Chheda-Kothary, Ather Sharif, Henok Assalif, Jeffrey Heer and Jon E. Froehlich.

Cite GeoVisA11y

@inproceedings{li2026geovisa11y,
  author={Li, Chu and Pang, Rock and Chheda-Kothary, Arnavi and Sharif, Ather and Assalif, Henok and Heer, Jeffrey and Froehlich, Jon E.},
  booktitle={2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)}, 
  title={GeoVisA11y: AI-based Geovisualization QA System for Screen-Reader Users}, 
  year={2026},
  pages={1-17},
  keywords={Geovisualization;Accessibility;Screen-reader;AI;QA;Visualization},
  doi={https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790334}}

Setup

1. Copy .env.example to .env
2. Place spatial-db.db in backend/database/ (to request this file, please email chuchuli@cs.washington.edu)
3. Install dependencies:
   • Backend: cd backend && pip install -r requirements.txt
   • Frontend: npm install

Running the Application

Backend:

cd backend
flask run

Frontend:

npm start

The app will open at http://localhost:3000