{"id":3699,"date":"2026-05-04T09:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T13:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/graphics-and-apps\/?p=3699"},"modified":"2026-05-04T09:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T13:03:13","slug":"an-accessible-modern-axes-toolbar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.mathworks.com\/graphics-and-apps\/2026\/05\/04\/an-accessible-modern-axes-toolbar\/","title":{"rendered":"An Accessible & Modern Axes Toolbar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\"Portrait<\/td>\nGuest Writer: Jessa Karlberg<\/a>
\n<\/strong>Jessa is a software engineer on the Graphics Interactions and Accessibility team at MathWorks. After years of creating her own charts and data visualizations, she now develops tools to help others do the same, with an eye to interactive design and user experience. When she\u2019s not coding, she enjoys drinking way too much tea and knitting copious quantities of hats.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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The axes toolbar was introduced in MATLAB R2018b as a way to show useful controls and tools right next to the axes, where those tools are relevant. The toolbar gives users finer-grained control over interactions that are enabled on axes by default, like zooming and data brushing. The toolbar also helps chart creators provide custom functionality in a consistent and predictable place.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Over the years, we noticed opportunities to improve the axes toolbar experience\u2014particularly for people using touchscreens, keyboard navigation, and screen readers. That\u2019s why, in R2026a, we updated the toolbar to make it more accessible for more users! The toolbar now starts collapsed as a single button, which is always visible. All interactions with the toolbar, such as displaying the toolbar or drop-down items, are click-based rather than hover-based, which greatly improves accessibility and gives users explicit control over when and how the toolbar appears.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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