[accessibility] Workshop at TUG2018 (20 July), example source TeX documents

Anna Capietto anna.capietto at unito.it
Thu Jul 26 12:55:37 CEST 2018


Dear Colleagues,

Thank you very much, once again, for the invitation to present our package
and the accessibility project at TUGMeeting 2018, and to participate to your
round table on accessibility.

We would like to add a few remarks.

-  During Sandro's presentation, his Mac language was still set to Italian,
   while the screenreader's one was English, so the Latex code was (partly)
   read incorrectly. Please find here
http://www.integr-abile.unito.it/share/VoiceOver.mp4 a short video,
   that shows the correct reading of such code in English through VoiceOver
   and Adobe Reader DC.

-  We are aware that the PDF file obtained from pdfLatex using axessibility.sty
   still has some issues (as Ulrike Fisher noted), and it is not tagged. We are
   currently working towards a compliant solution, but our first main focus,
   as explained during the talk, was accessibility of formulae by screenreaders.
   Concerning this point, we would like to stress, once again, that having a PDF
   with formulae that can be read by VoiceOver, JAWS and NVDA is (by our
   testers' feedback) really an important improvement for visually impaired
   people.

- Concerning the more technical aspects of Ulrike Fisher's comment (namely,
  the overlapping with AccSupp), we already proposed on GitHub a solution
  that does not patch the original command. As soon as the test phase is
  completed, we will upload a new version of our package on CTAN (which
  will also cover more LaTeX commands for writing mathematical formuale).

To conclude: we believe that the alternate text of a formula should be
delivered in Latex.
This is a very flexible way to deliver the meaning of the formula
itself. The natural language and the semantic interpretation can be
left to screen readers'
dictionaries, add-ons and document Readers. This allows customization
of the language,  user's mathematical knowledge, scientific area, etc.
We are currently working on dictionaries for NVDA and JAWS which you
can find on our repository on GitHub.

Needless to say, we would be very grateful for any further comment/hint
by TUG members, aimed at improving our package functionalities and its
interplay with other LaTeX packages/accessibility tools.

Please find below the links to Sandro's talk in Rio, and 2 short
videos showing how VoiceOver, NVDA and Jaws behave with our package.

http://www.integr-abile.unito.it/share/AxessibilityTalkTUG180720.pdf
(slides)

http://www.integr-abile.unito.it/share/VoiceOver.mp4
(voiceover)

http://www.integr-abile.unito.it/share/NVDAandJAWS.mp4
(NVDA&JAWS)

Thank you again for your support. Best regards,

Anna, Sandro, and the axessibility team


2018-07-17 19:36 GMT+02:00 Jonathan Fine <jfine2358 at gmail.com>:
> Hi Chris
>
> The axessibility package of Sandro Coriasco and Anna Capietto is a welcome
> and major addition to LaTeX accessibility resources. I'm delighted that a
> way has been found, at the last moment, for them to give a talk on their
> package at TUG 2018.
> http://tug.org/tug2018/program.html
> https://ctan.org/pkg/axessibility
>
> I very much hope that a way can also be found for at least one of the Blind
> Math experts to contribute remotely to the workshop "Accessibility
> challenges in LaTeX", whose agenda we were discussing. Boris and Ross, is
> this something you could look at? Blind math students and teachers use LaTeX
> in many situations, including web pages. The experts on that list can help
> us develop something that fits in well with all systems that students (and
> teachers) wish to use.
>
> I've been a lurker on the BlindMath list for some time. Can I suggest Sara
> Kobal, who followed development of axessibility as a tester, and Bill
> Dengler, who knows NVDA, which will most likely speak the math in the PDF.
> Sarah Jevnikar also seems knowledgeable. And apologies for all the worthy
> people on BlindMath that I've missed.
>
> It's not my workshop, and I won't be at Rio. So I pass decisions and
> responsibility over to Boris and Ross, if I may.
>
> with best regards
>
> Jonathan
>
> On Wed, Jul 11, 2018 at 6:36 AM, Christopher Rowley <c.a.rowley at icloud.com>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> > On 11 Jul 2018, at 00:11, Jonathan Fine <jfine2358 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > the non-CTAN LaTeX style files they depend on. I for one hope that he
>> > can do that soon. This would very much help me contribute (by email) to the
>> > accessibility workshop on 20 July.
>>
>> But note that the details of these files are not at all relevant to the
>> accessibility workshop.
>>
>> This workshop will concentrate on what changes are needed to the latex
>> core and package files to support distinct aspects of accessibility in pdf
>> 1.7, primarily those related to document structure (micro and macro) and
>> natural language text.
>>
>> Chris
>
>


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