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Thread: introduction and question about braille unicode

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Number of posts in this thread: 9 (In chronological order)

From: mohammad suliman
Date: Mon, Apr 06 2020 1:07AM
Subject: introduction and question about braille unicode
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Hello all,

My name is Mohammad Suliman, I am a blind software developer. In the passed
few months, I had the chance to start to work on a web project aiming to
help blind people visualize graphs using braille, tones and speech. To
achieve this, we use braille unicode in a special way to represent our
data. Now this leads me to the question: do I need to set the lang
attribute of the braille text to some special value? Does this affect how
the screen reader announces this text? We noticed that some TTSs announce
the braille characters as braille pattern or something similar, others stay
silent, and others speaks gibberish. I doubt that using HTML or js code we
could control that, am I correct? Also, to be compliant with WCAG
standards, do we need to do something special for the braille unicode text?

Thanks in advance!
Waiting for your reply!
Mohammad

From: Murphy, Sean
Date: Mon, Apr 06 2020 1:40AM
Subject: Re: introduction and question about braille unicode
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Mohammad

How are you showing the Braille to the end-user? Using a Braille font or are you using ASCII braille? Do you have an example web page?

Note, 3.1.1 is referring to language codes where Braille Technically is a font type, not a language.

Braille can be shown in any written language, has different codes for computer, music, ETC which the braille characters change depending on the code type. Sharing this for those who might not know.

Regards
Sean

From: Peter Krautzberger
Date: Mon, Apr 06 2020 1:41AM
Subject: Re: introduction and question about braille unicode
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Hello Mohammad,

Perhaps the following two pieces of information are not directly helpful in
which case I apologize.

First, the ARIA Working Group is currently working on adding new attributes
for customizing braille output (aria-braillelabel,
aria-brailleroledescription). Those properties are only in the ARIA draft
so far (cf. [1] below); they will hopefully be added to ARIA 1.3.
I'm actively involved in this effort and would be very interested in more
information about your use case. Would you be able to share an example of
the kind of content you are creating and what you have tested?

Second, the APA's pronunciation task force (cf. [2] below) is probably also
relevant. Its work is at a similarly early stage howevere.

Regards,
Peter Krautzberger.

[1] https://w3c.github.io/aria/
[2] https://www.w3.org/WAI/APA/task-forces/pronunciation/

Am Mo., 6. Apr. 2020 um 09:07 Uhr schrieb mohammad suliman <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:

> Hello all,
>
> My name is Mohammad Suliman, I am a blind software developer. In the passed
> few months, I had the chance to start to work on a web project aiming to
> help blind people visualize graphs using braille, tones and speech. To
> achieve this, we use braille unicode in a special way to represent our
> data. Now this leads me to the question: do I need to set the lang
> attribute of the braille text to some special value? Does this affect how
> the screen reader announces this text? We noticed that some TTSs announce
> the braille characters as braille pattern or something similar, others stay
> silent, and others speaks gibberish. I doubt that using HTML or js code we
> could control that, am I correct? Also, to be compliant with WCAG
> standards, do we need to do something special for the braille unicode text?
>
> Thanks in advance!
> Waiting for your reply!
> Mohammad
> > > > >

From: Murphy, Sean
Date: Mon, Apr 06 2020 1:47AM
Subject: Re: introduction and question about braille unicode
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Hello Mohammad,

Have a look at the below CSS, I did a quick google search and found the below CSS attributes for Braille. Not sure if it will address your query.

@media braille is a method to target braille devices.

Sean

From: Patrick H. Lauke
Date: Mon, Apr 06 2020 2:25AM
Subject: Re: introduction and question about braille unicode
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On 06/04/2020 08:47, Murphy, Sean wrote:

> Have a look at the below CSS, I did a quick google search and found the below CSS attributes for Braille. Not sure if it will address your query.
>
> @media braille is a method to target braille devices.

Note that the "braille" media type (as well as tty, tv, projection,
handhel, embossed, aural) is deprecated due to lack of actual real-world
support (and as an aside, there's plans to also deprecate "speech"
unless there's a supporting UA out there)

https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-4/#media-types

P
--
Patrick H. Lauke

https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux
twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke

From: mohammad suliman
Date: Mon, Apr 06 2020 3:53AM
Subject: Re: introduction and question about braille unicode
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Hello Sean and Patrick,

Thanks so much for the info! This is appreciated!
Sean, this is a regular unicode characters representing braille. You can
read about this here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille_Patterns
Sorry! I think the correct term to describe this is braille patterns.

All the best!
Mohammad
On Mon, 6 Apr 2020 at 11:25, Patrick H. Lauke < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> On 06/04/2020 08:47, Murphy, Sean wrote:
>
> > Have a look at the below CSS, I did a quick google search and found the
> below CSS attributes for Braille. Not sure if it will address your query.
> >
> > @media braille is a method to target braille devices.
>
> Note that the "braille" media type (as well as tty, tv, projection,
> handhel, embossed, aural) is deprecated due to lack of actual real-world
> support (and as an aside, there's plans to also deprecate "speech"
> unless there's a supporting UA out there)
>
> https://drafts.csswg.org/mediaqueries-4/#media-types
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
>
> https://www.splintered.co.uk/ | https://github.com/patrickhlauke
> https://flickr.com/photos/redux/ | https://www.deviantart.com/redux
> twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
> > > > >

From: mohammad suliman
Date: Mon, Apr 06 2020 4:04AM
Subject: Re: introduction and question about braille unicode
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Hello Peter,

Thanks for the resources! Much appreciated! Will have a look.
The site we are working on uses braille patterns to draw some graph on the
braille display. It isn't a regular graph, but an actual overview of the
graph which we calculate according to some method we have developed. We
need to use those patterns to have full control on the shape of the braille
data we want to draw on the display. Do you have an access to a braille
display so I can send you some sample you can examine if do you think this
is necessary?
Happy to elaborate more on what we are doing if this is not clear enough.

Have a great time!
Mohammad
On Mon, 6 Apr 2020 at 10:41, Peter Krautzberger < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:

> Hello Mohammad,
>
> Perhaps the following two pieces of information are not directly helpful in
> which case I apologize.
>
> First, the ARIA Working Group is currently working on adding new attributes
> for customizing braille output (aria-braillelabel,
> aria-brailleroledescription). Those properties are only in the ARIA draft
> so far (cf. [1] below); they will hopefully be added to ARIA 1.3.
> I'm actively involved in this effort and would be very interested in more
> information about your use case. Would you be able to share an example of
> the kind of content you are creating and what you have tested?
>
> Second, the APA's pronunciation task force (cf. [2] below) is probably also
> relevant. Its work is at a similarly early stage howevere.
>
> Regards,
> Peter Krautzberger.
>
> [1] https://w3c.github.io/aria/
> [2] https://www.w3.org/WAI/APA/task-forces/pronunciation/
>
> Am Mo., 6. Apr. 2020 um 09:07 Uhr schrieb mohammad suliman <
> = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:
>
> > Hello all,
> >
> > My name is Mohammad Suliman, I am a blind software developer. In the
> passed
> > few months, I had the chance to start to work on a web project aiming to
> > help blind people visualize graphs using braille, tones and speech. To
> > achieve this, we use braille unicode in a special way to represent our
> > data. Now this leads me to the question: do I need to set the lang
> > attribute of the braille text to some special value? Does this affect how
> > the screen reader announces this text? We noticed that some TTSs announce
> > the braille characters as braille pattern or something similar, others
> stay
> > silent, and others speaks gibberish. I doubt that using HTML or js code
> we
> > could control that, am I correct? Also, to be compliant with WCAG
> > standards, do we need to do something special for the braille unicode
> text?
> >
> > Thanks in advance!
> > Waiting for your reply!
> > Mohammad
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > >

From: Peter Krautzberger
Date: Mon, Apr 06 2020 4:51AM
Subject: Re: introduction and question about braille unicode
← Previous message | Next message →

Hello Mohammad,

I would be happy to take a look. Feel free to send me a direct email if you
cannot share it on the list.

Best regards,
Peter.

Am Mo., 6. Apr. 2020 um 12:05 Uhr schrieb mohammad suliman <
= EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:

> Hello Peter,
>
> Thanks for the resources! Much appreciated! Will have a look.
> The site we are working on uses braille patterns to draw some graph on the
> braille display. It isn't a regular graph, but an actual overview of the
> graph which we calculate according to some method we have developed. We
> need to use those patterns to have full control on the shape of the braille
> data we want to draw on the display. Do you have an access to a braille
> display so I can send you some sample you can examine if do you think this
> is necessary?
> Happy to elaborate more on what we are doing if this is not clear enough.
>
> Have a great time!
> Mohammad
> On Mon, 6 Apr 2020 at 10:41, Peter Krautzberger < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> wrote:
>
> > Hello Mohammad,
> >
> > Perhaps the following two pieces of information are not directly helpful
> in
> > which case I apologize.
> >
> > First, the ARIA Working Group is currently working on adding new
> attributes
> > for customizing braille output (aria-braillelabel,
> > aria-brailleroledescription). Those properties are only in the ARIA draft
> > so far (cf. [1] below); they will hopefully be added to ARIA 1.3.
> > I'm actively involved in this effort and would be very interested in more
> > information about your use case. Would you be able to share an example of
> > the kind of content you are creating and what you have tested?
> >
> > Second, the APA's pronunciation task force (cf. [2] below) is probably
> also
> > relevant. Its work is at a similarly early stage howevere.
> >
> > Regards,
> > Peter Krautzberger.
> >
> > [1] https://w3c.github.io/aria/
> > [2] https://www.w3.org/WAI/APA/task-forces/pronunciation/
> >
> > Am Mo., 6. Apr. 2020 um 09:07 Uhr schrieb mohammad suliman <
> > = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:
> >
> > > Hello all,
> > >
> > > My name is Mohammad Suliman, I am a blind software developer. In the
> > passed
> > > few months, I had the chance to start to work on a web project aiming
> to
> > > help blind people visualize graphs using braille, tones and speech. To
> > > achieve this, we use braille unicode in a special way to represent our
> > > data. Now this leads me to the question: do I need to set the lang
> > > attribute of the braille text to some special value? Does this affect
> how
> > > the screen reader announces this text? We noticed that some TTSs
> announce
> > > the braille characters as braille pattern or something similar, others
> > stay
> > > silent, and others speaks gibberish. I doubt that using HTML or js code
> > we
> > > could control that, am I correct? Also, to be compliant with WCAG
> > > standards, do we need to do something special for the braille unicode
> > text?
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance!
> > > Waiting for your reply!
> > > Mohammad
> > > > > > > > > > > > > > >
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > >

From: Jonathan Avila
Date: Mon, Apr 06 2020 8:58AM
Subject: Re: introduction and question about braille unicode
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Currently it's not possible to have something announced but have something else shown on a refreshable braille display unless you try to do some hack with aria-live, etc. So if you had a math equation that was written in a certain way such as written out as words but you wanted to have it displayed in braille using UEB math or Nemeth it would not be possible. As mentioned the new aria-braillelabel attribute which I doubt is supported by assistive technology hopefully will solve this issue at some point in the future.

Jonathan