4 ms·

That really has to get fixed though.

robin_reala 8y ago
It’s really not a screenreader’s job to guess what a character might be being pressed into service to represent in a given scenario, and to try to work out when that’s inappropriate and it should be using the original specified meaning.
- bonoboTP 8y ago
  Well, it kind of is. In my mind, a screen reader should read anything that a healthy human can. Ideally even text in images and any sort of weirdness.
  - gumby 8y ago
    Then again different healthy humans read texts differently. There's no such thing as a canonical reading and any reading bring in prior semantics. There was a sign posted in the break room of a lab I used to work at. It read, "<long complex equation> is easy for you to read, but not for everyone. Volunteer to read for the blind." It was a good double whammy.
SEMW 8y ago
It doesn't and shouldn't. The whole point of having Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols as separate unicode code points, rather than just using normal latin characters with style markup, is so they can be used when the different letters have semantically different meanings -- in particular in maths when 𝘹 and 𝘅 can be in the same formula, representing different concepts. They're not a replacement for style markup. In other words, they're different characters specifically so that screen readers can know to read them out loud differently! Trying to 'fix' screenreaders by having them read anything that them as if they were normal latin characters, to accommodate people who like using the Mathematical Symbols block for fun in places which only allow plain text, would completely defeat the actual purpose of them. https://www.unicode.org/faq/ligature_digraph.html#Pf6 https://www.unicode.org/faq/ligature_digraph.html#Pf6
- slavik81 8y ago
  How do screen readers handle other aspects of mathematical equations? For example, if I have an equation like "A equals B to the C", how do I represent this such that a screen reader will say it correctly? As far as I can tell, I can't. I see the FAQ you linked states that I'm supposed to use markup for this. Unfortunately, that means the screen reader needs to understand math markup to work correctly. If that's the case, it seems like we could just include other concerns like Bold X vs X in the math markup as well.
  - SEMW 8y ago
    > How do screen readers handle other aspects of mathematical equations? For example, if I have an equation like "A equals B to the C", how do I represent this such that a screen reader will say it correctly? This was one of the problems that MathML was built to solve, see https://accessibility.princeton.edu/blogs/mathml-accessible-math-markup https://accessibility.princeton.edu/blogs/mathml-accessible-...
- cryptonector 8y ago
  Am I confused as to what unicode.style is doing? Oh, yes I am. It's using U+1D400 MATHEMATICAL BOLD CAPITAL A and such. I see. Ok, thanks for setting me straight!

It’s really not a screenreader’s job to guess what a character might be being pressed into service to represent in a given scenario, and to try to work out when that’s inappropriate and it should be using the original specified meaning.

bonoboTP 8y ago
Well, it kind of is. In my mind, a screen reader should read anything that a healthy human can. Ideally even text in images and any sort of weirdness.
- gumby 8y ago
  Then again different healthy humans read texts differently. There's no such thing as a canonical reading and any reading bring in prior semantics. There was a sign posted in the break room of a lab I used to work at. It read, "<long complex equation> is easy for you to read, but not for everyone. Volunteer to read for the blind." It was a good double whammy.

SEMW 8y ago

It doesn't and shouldn't. The whole point of having Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols as separate unicode code points, rather than just using normal latin characters with style markup, is so they can be used when the different letters have semantically different meanings -- in particular in maths when 𝘹 and 𝘅 can be in the same formula, representing different concepts. They're not a replacement for style markup. In other words, they're different characters specifically so that screen readers can know to read them out loud differently! Trying to 'fix' screenreaders by having them read anything that them as if they were normal latin characters, to accommodate people who like using the Mathematical Symbols block for fun in places which only allow plain text, would completely defeat the actual purpose of them. https://www.unicode.org/faq/ligature_digraph.html#Pf6 https://www.unicode.org/faq/ligature_digraph.html#Pf6

slavik81 8y ago
How do screen readers handle other aspects of mathematical equations? For example, if I have an equation like "A equals B to the C", how do I represent this such that a screen reader will say it correctly? As far as I can tell, I can't. I see the FAQ you linked states that I'm supposed to use markup for this. Unfortunately, that means the screen reader needs to understand math markup to work correctly. If that's the case, it seems like we could just include other concerns like Bold X vs X in the math markup as well.
- SEMW 8y ago
  > How do screen readers handle other aspects of mathematical equations? For example, if I have an equation like "A equals B to the C", how do I represent this such that a screen reader will say it correctly? This was one of the problems that MathML was built to solve, see https://accessibility.princeton.edu/blogs/mathml-accessible-math-markup https://accessibility.princeton.edu/blogs/mathml-accessible-...
cryptonector 8y ago
Am I confused as to what unicode.style is doing? Oh, yes I am. It's using U+1D400 MATHEMATICAL BOLD CAPITAL A and such. I see. Ok, thanks for setting me straight!