Inline MathJax is not read correctly by screen readers

[jlgre...@gmail.com]

Hello,

I've been using JAWS 16 to read MathML and Tex equations rendered with MathJax. I've been specifically asked to use JAWS 16 and IE11; I've also used NVDA and WindowsEyes and both have the same, if not worse, issues reading the math in general. 

My main issue is that MathML and Tex elements that are displayed inline are not read in a mathematically correct format. For example, b^2 is read as "b-two" instead of "b-squared".

When display block elements are rendered as MathJax, they have the MathJax_Display class. When inline elements are rendered as MathJax, they have the MathJax class only. I cannot figure out what specifically about the MathJax_Display allows JAWS to interpret the math correctly. If I change the class MathJax to MathJax_Display and overwrite the block styles, it reads it "close" to correctly. Please see my examples for more details about my test cases and requirements. 

Attached is an example html file that contains test cases and examples of the issues listed above. I have also reached out to FreedomScientific about these issues along with several accessibility forums, but I have not received any information yet. 

Thanks in advance for any help or resoruces that you can provide,

Jennifer

[Peter Krautzberger]

Hi Jennifer,

Sorry to hear about the problem. I'm afraid MathJax has very limited control over how screenreaders read out MathJax output. MathJax replaces the original MathML or TeX source (there's really no other way right now) which makes it challenging for screenreaders (even if they support some form of mathematics). 

We are planning some improvements to make it easier for screenreaders to pick up the MathML that MathJax produces internally. But whether screenreaders end up leveraging that, we cannot say (well, NVDA has helped us devise this additional embedding so we're hoping they will use it).

Best regards,

Peter.

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MathJax Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to mathjax-user...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[jlgre...@gmail.com]

Hi Peter,

I appreciate the quick response. I was expecting that, just had to try!

I did find a solution to one of my problems - the screen reader reads "clickable on mouseover" after each inline term. This is because I am missing the aria-readonly=true attribute on the span with class=MathJax. Can you please tell me how I can set this from within my MathML or Tex? All of the examples I have found only imply that this is .. automatic. But given the mathml in my examples, none of them produce this tag.

Thank you,

Jennifer

[Peter Krautzberger]

Hi Jennifer,

There were a couple of changes in MathJax v2.5 related to this as we are moving away from hiding MathJax output (towards a fully accessible output). I will file a bug report regarding the "clicable on mouseover" (which is related to our menu).

For MathML input, you can apply aria attributes as usual and MathJax will preserve it, e.g.,

    <math aria-readonly=true>

       ....

    </math>

might produce something like 

<span style="width: 8.516em;" role="math" aria-readonly=true id="MathJax-Span-1" class="math">

I don't think we have a mechanism for TeX input though.

Best regards,

Peter.

[Jennifer Green]

Hi Peter,

I did try putting the aria-readonly=true attribute on the MathML <math> tag, but the result is that it is applied to the incorrect span. The aria-readonly tag must be on the span with class="MathJax" in order to prevent the "clickable" issue. 

Once you have created a bug for this, can you please provide me a way to track the progress on this bug if possible?

Thank you,

Jennifer

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "MathJax Users" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/mathjax-users/bA_MsNjE2-8/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to mathjax-user...@googlegroups.com.

[Peter Krautzberger]

Hi Jennifer,

Thanks for correcting me. I'm not sure how we can resolve this but I've filed a bug at https://github.com/mathjax/MathJax/issues/1093. 

Best regards,

Peter.