Re: [mediaqueries] MathML

Florian Rivoal <florian@rivoal.net>:
> 
> - Even though MathML is markup, and therefore more amenable to support by screenreaders than plain images, it is not actually a good format for accessibility purposes, and screen reader integration is not that good either. Alternatives such as HTML or SVG representations of the content with sufficient ARIA annotations can give better results.

That’s assuming presentation MathML, I guess, and “plain images” are bitmap formats.

> - While a number of publishers do express the desire to use MathML in production and would welcome the help of such an MQ for doing that, most of those who have actually tried to use MathML in production give up after testing shows that neither the presentation nor the accessibility is up to their expectations, and therefore go back to publishing math in some other form (images, svg…).

I would much prefer if image formats, SVG in particular, would be able to embed or link to the source code used to generate them and if source formats, e.g. MathML, could embed or link to a fallback/preview rendition of their content. It seems that would match existing workflows in publishing quite well.

  <svg>
    <source>
      <math alternative="formula.png">
        <source href="formula.tex" />
      </math>
    </source>
  </svg>

Alternatively, (presentation) MathML could be treated like an image by HTML and CSS (e.g. within `content`). For alternative and fallback content, the web platform tried <object> and server-side content negotiation already. Still, I don’t see why Mediaqueries should be involved at all, unless its purpose is now seen as full-scale client-side content negotiation.

Received on Thursday, 6 October 2016 07:51:58 UTC