> However, if I do go out of my way to use the special unicode characters, that should not trip up screen readers! It is exactly the "going out of my way" that

> However, if I do go out of my way to use the special unicode characters, that should not trip up screen readers! It is exactly the "going out of my way" that makes software tripping up on this understandable to me. It's not a common occurrence. Simple as that. Same as Babylonian Cuneiform Numerals are not. Sure, it's way more likely that a screenreader has to read a Ⅳ than a 𒐉, but compared to the size of the problem space, both are just miniscule, and a system that doesn't handle either, will still behave correctly almost the entire time. > You might say "well, images with alt text represent a small fraction of the problem space", considering how many photos are casually uploaded to Instagram every day. But images are a common occurrence in the problem space. The fact that the `alt` attribute is often not set, doesn't change that. In addition, the `alt` attribute is a simple system, designed with systems having to parse it in mind, that conveys a tangible advantage over not using it. What advantage does writing "In Hamlet, Act Ⅳ, Scene Ⅸ..." have over writing "In Hamlet, Act 4, Scene 9..."?