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Thread: screen readers and notation for science
Number of posts in this thread: 8 (In chronological order)
From: Jessica White
Date: Thu, Oct 29 2015 1:43PM
Subject: screen readers and notation for science
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Hello,
My question is regarding screen-reader compatibility for webpages about
scientific concepts. Genetics alleles like *Bb*, *bB*, *bb*, and *BB*, or
chemical compounds like Pb(NO3)2 could be confusing because the
capitalization and parentheses are important for the meaning. Is there
anything special I should be doing when putting this type of content on a
webpage?
If it appears in alt text I could specify the notation in words,
"capital B lowercase b",
"P b parenthesis N O 3 parenthesis 2",
but is that necessary?
And what about when that notation appears in the body of a webpage? .
I know that NVDA has an option to say "cap" or to beep before capital
letters, but I can only seem to get that to work when typing, not when
reading a page. Also, there will be cases where just saying the chemical
name (such as lead nitrate) doesn't convey as much info as the formula, so
that's not always an option.
From: _mallory
Date: Fri, Oct 30 2015 3:08AM
Subject: Re: screen readers and notation for science
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There are some options out there, but the student or researcher will
still run into issues likely.
For Braille there are math-specific notations (and I've seen chemical
ones) like Nemeth. Nemeth might just be very US-based, I'm not sure,
and again, it's a Braille thing.
Writing as much math in MathML would be good, but haven't heard if
there's a chemistry-ML out there.
More commonly, people try to write the notations in LaTeX. This means
both the author and the reader needs to have learned LaTeX, but you
can pretty much say anything and everything with it. There are caveats
for when an author makes a mistake (can make the whole rule unreadable).
It can also be ported to MS-Word apparently.
Lastly, I know if it's more simple/basic mathy stuff, a screen reader
user can often turn on a bunch of settings they'd normally have off,
like the caps you mentioned. There's a list of settings (kinda JAWS
oriented but mentions NVDA too) at
http://www.webassign.net/manual/student_guide/c_a_screen_reader_config.htm
but this won't do for really hairy stuff.
_mallory
On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 02:43:02PM -0500, Jessica White wrote:
> Hello,
> My question is regarding screen-reader compatibility for webpages about
> scientific concepts. Genetics alleles like *Bb*, *bB*, *bb*, and *BB*, or
> chemical compounds like Pb(NO3)2 could be confusing because the
> capitalization and parentheses are important for the meaning. Is there
> anything special I should be doing when putting this type of content on a
> webpage?
>
> If it appears in alt text I could specify the notation in words,
> "capital B lowercase b",
> "P b parenthesis N O 3 parenthesis 2",
> but is that necessary?
>
> And what about when that notation appears in the body of a webpage? .
>
> I know that NVDA has an option to say "cap" or to beep before capital
> letters, but I can only seem to get that to work when typing, not when
> reading a page. Also, there will be cases where just saying the chemical
> name (such as lead nitrate) doesn't convey as much info as the formula, so
> that's not always an option.
> > > >
From: Sarah Jevnikar
Date: Fri, Oct 30 2015 8:45AM
Subject: Re: screen readers and notation for science
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Hi there,
MathML or LaTeX seems the best idea here. JAWS and NVDA are more able to read MathML now (using The MathPlayer plugin from Design Science (for NVDA) or MathJax (for JAWS). LaTeX can be read by any screen reader, but is source so isn't as nice to read (one-half is frac{1}{2} for instance)
For reference, here's a page on MathML and LaTeX: http://www.access2science.com/indexMathLanguages.html
From: Aaron Cannon
Date: Fri, Oct 30 2015 12:02PM
Subject: Re: screen readers and notation for science
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Whether or not to use LaTex of course depends on a lot of things, but
I personally feel that all things being equal, LaTex is preferable if
the user will ever be expected to write what they're reading. MathML
is great for reading, but pretty terrible for writing. As far as I
know, almost no one writes MathML by hand, but plenty of people write
LaTex by hand.
Ultimately, however, it just depends on your goals. And with MathJax,
you should be able to offer both formats, and let the user decide.
Aaron
On 10/30/15, Sarah Jevnikar < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> Hi there,
> MathML or LaTeX seems the best idea here. JAWS and NVDA are more able to
> read MathML now (using The MathPlayer plugin from Design Science (for NVDA)
> or MathJax (for JAWS). LaTeX can be read by any screen reader, but is source
> so isn't as nice to read (one-half is frac{1}{2} for instance)
>
> For reference, here's a page on MathML and LaTeX:
> http://www.access2science.com/indexMathLanguages.html
>
>
>
From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Mon, Nov 02 2015 6:31AM
Subject: Re: screen readers and notation for science
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> My question is regarding screen-reader compatibility for webpages about scientific concepts. Genetics alleles like *Bb*, *bB*, *bb*, and *BB*, or chemical compounds like Pb(NO3)2 could be confusing because the capitalization and parentheses are important for the meaning. Is there anything special I should be doing when putting this type of content on a webpage?
I wish technologies such as Aural CSS were supported by more screen readers other than VoiceOver. This could allow you to indicate how letters and punctuation should be pronounced separately. By adding text like capital it makes the Braille reading experience much less efficient and in some cases and perhaps harder to "visualize". To my knowledge there aren't a lot of great options. Perhaps you could allow the user to toggle that extra information or remove it to help beginning and advanced users.
Jonathan
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Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group
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From: Karen Sorensen
Date: Mon, Nov 02 2015 11:25AM
Subject: Re: screen readers and notation for science
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Hi - I have read about a ChemML <http://www.xml-cml.org/>;, but I believe
the W3C recommends MathML <http://www.w3.org/Math/>; even for science. Does
anyone know any different?
But an accessible way to write math is a huge problem.
Not to mention the varying results of a screen reader + browser + plugin
reading mathML.
Thanks,
Karen
Karen M. Sorensen
Accessibility Advocate for Online Courses
www.pcc.edu/access
Portland Community College
971-722-4720
From: Chagnon | PubCom.com
Date: Mon, Nov 02 2015 11:36AM
Subject: Re: screen readers and notation for science
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Karen wrote:
"But an accessible way to write math is a huge problem.
Not to mention the varying results of a screen reader + browser + plugin reading mathML."
This is one area of accessibility that needs to be addressed. In publishing, math formulas must be in a file format that will work for press, as well as one that will work for electronic versions such as PDF, MS Word, and HTML. And be fully accessible.
And then there's the person who's writing the formula, usually an administrative assistant, document specialist, or graphic designer rather than the scientist.
It's a tough combo of requirements, and I sure wish someone would start working on a solution!
âBevi Chagnon
From: steve.noble
Date: Mon, Nov 02 2015 12:09PM
Subject: Re: screen readers and notation for science
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If one is trying to notate things like common chemical reaction or nuclear decay equations within a web page, then MathML can work quite well. In practice, one would likely embed the content in the page in MathML and then use MathJax to do the rendering, which gets around the browser support issues. The screen-reader experience will vary. JAWS 16 handles their own math speech output, but I don't think they are doing anything special to get better reading of chemical formulas. NVDA coupled with MathPlayer 4 will generally generate much better reading. One can even tell MathPlayer whether to generate a more semantic reading (e.g., to speak "copper sulfate"), a spelled out reading (e.g., "C u S O 4"), or to use the Nemeth MathSpeak rules (e.g., "upper C u upper S upper O 4"). Plus, with NVDA and MathPlayer you can get Nemeth braille out of the braille display. So, there are a number of advantages. See the Accessible Image Sample Book section on chemistry:
http://diagramcenter.org/standards-and-practices/accessible-image-sample-book.html
ChemML offers the potential for making things like molecular diagrams much more accessible, but there really hasn't been any substantive work in this area. Perhaps one day...
--Steve Noble
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
502-969-3088
http://louisville.academia.edu/SteveNoble
From: WebAIM-Forum [ = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] on behalf of Karen Sorensen [ = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ]
Sent: Monday, November 02, 2015 1:25 PM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] screen readers and notation for science
Hi - I have read about a ChemML <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.xml-2Dcml.org_&d=AwIGaQ&c=SgMrq23dbjbGX6e0ZsSHgEZX6A4IAf1SO3AJ2bNrHlk&r=4WMck1ZVLo4tV0IVllcBNKXCSGU6lUERtx_4HD4DqmE&m=ojSELwC-x9y3iCFglzXKnwS40Nv7-Cbp5dm_7DXf2tk&s=zryyFmx5jJjClLEGku4ldTVdPdmNHQqzmDVGnfHmjLo&e= >, but I believe
the W3C recommends MathML <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.w3.org_Math_&d=AwIGaQ&c=SgMrq23dbjbGX6e0ZsSHgEZX6A4IAf1SO3AJ2bNrHlk&r=4WMck1ZVLo4tV0IVllcBNKXCSGU6lUERtx_4HD4DqmE&m=ojSELwC-x9y3iCFglzXKnwS40Nv7-Cbp5dm_7DXf2tk&sorEaiRYXDFeAcPd9Q4cbeNCxHNjTTnSOygd2Af2Hs&e= > even for science. Does
anyone know any different?
But an accessible way to write math is a huge problem.
Not to mention the varying results of a screen reader + browser + plugin
reading mathML.
Thanks,
Karen
Karen M. Sorensen
Accessibility Advocate for Online Courses
www.pcc.edu/access
Portland Community College
971-722-4720