Minutes: MathML intent meeting, 21 Jan, 2021

Attendees:

Neil Soiffer

Bruce Miller

David Carlisle

Deyan Ginev

David Farmer

Sam Dooley

Murray Sargent

Charles LaPierre

Louis Maher

The meeting was recorded:

https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/R9Ba3jXnjq6CBVsxG_0nM0vfdFdUsRi8RL-vnnEf55mbBJkj41ifL3Gm2JCsLMQr.Po3gj4wqym_y4ga2

 Passcode: Zb#4&Rg&

Thanks to Louis for taking notes.

Agenda:

1. Updates?

NS: The WG authorization is moving forward.  More groups are signing off.

2. Presentation on AT needs for better semantic reading of math

NS: Neil presented his paper.

https://mathml-refresh.github.io/mathml/docs/a11y-needs.html
<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmathml-refresh.github.io%2Fmathml%2Fdocs%2Fa11y-needs.html&data=04%7C01%7C%7C9606e870e63f443ac86208d8bde2230d%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637468126230077866%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=mOsSV06ZkMK9RVmaenAlS6hjUXyn4wzLgvscVHE1TWU%3D&reserved=0>

NS: People need to understand what accessibility needs.

NS: You need to know how to pronounce things like “sin” correctly.

People need different things from speech descriptions depending on what
they are trying to do.

Nothing is fixed in speech descriptions.

BM: Do we have a point of view on how far accessibility system is supposed
to match things?  Is an exclamation point an exclamation point or a
factorial?

NS: Intent can guide the translation.

MS: Speech can be course grained or fine grained.  Fine grained is when you
describe something character by character.  Course grain is our usual mode.

If you are using keyboard and voice only, you need fine grain speech.

DJ: There are superscript symbols that are not powers- for example the
degrees sign.

DF: And things like \lim_{x \to 1^-},  pronounced “1 from the left”

NS: AT needs to know that it is to be transposed.  For example sqrt
superscript t transposed where t does not mean transpose.

You need to read what is there.

Be careful about d/dx.  It is not a fraction.  You might speak it
incorrectly.

Let AT know when it is reding a derivative and not a fraction.

Overbar has many ambiguities.

DG: Mean and Norm can be shown with overbars.

DG: Any time you have a new notation, you do not want to have to change the
specification.

BM: Intent is needed to clarify ambiguous symbols.

NS: Sometimes it is better to describe each symbol rather than to figure
out what the intent is.

NS: Level one covers about 99%  of what is on a web page.

What happens if you have to go beyond this.

What can an author do about unclear symbols.  Use math intent.

ARIA has an attribute called ARIA-label.  Gives an alternative way of
speaking something.  It tells the AT what it should read.

ARIA-label describes things on its own level.  It does not describe the
children of that level.

NS: Intent is trying to give speech guidance.

NS: For AT level 1, the speech wants to read what is written on the page.
You do not wish to abstract away the true grammar on the page.

Aria-label might override the true grammar in the document.

NS: add speak intent attributes like speak before and speak after to give
AT precise instructions on how to read things.

Aria-label works in level 3.

SD: There are international problems using Aria-label.

NS: With Aria-label the MathML is still there and the Braille output would
be correct.

NS: Every time we add an attribute, other committees must agree.

NS: We must figure out what is achievable.

3. What should our focus be for the next few months and ultimately, for a
spec?

NS: By the end of the year, we need to know what goes in the MathML four
draft.


We will have a MathML core and a MathML intent meetings next week..