machine readability (conversation starters)

Hi Tzviya,

For the present at least, I would disagree. I do dream that eventually
(maybe 10 years from now?) we'll have a thorough a11y API mapping for
mathematics. At the moment, I don't think mathematics (as a culture /
language) is ready for this (though web technology probably would be).

Regarding general machine readability vs accessibility, one important
difference I see is that machine readability can benefit from partial
results whereas accessibility cannot.

A typical example for this might be units. If we can find a way to make
units machine readable, I think we'd have a major improvement for STEM on
the web. But it won't help accessibility (much) to know that there are
units in an expression if it is otherwise unintelligible.

Of course, we currently don't have any standard or best practice for
exposing units on the web. The MathWG had a very old note on units  (from
2003) which suggested class='MathML-Unit' on MathML elements; I don't think
that's viable approach today. Perhaps schema is a better starting point
considering how successful search engines can leverage units in recipes (I
could imagine lab protocols and engineering might benefit from similar
methods).

For some tools it's extremely easy to generate markup for units, e.g., Jos
de Jong's MathJS has a rich interface for handling units and could probably
easily expose them in a visual output. TeX has a rich history with the
physics and siunitx packages (which are, for example, partially available
in MathJax as third party extensions) and heuristics seem feasible to
enrich formats in general (again, MathJax can do some of that via the
speechruleengine).

I think for humans we have to change our expectations. Otherwise, we'll
just end up repeating the mistakes of the past. I'll post some thoughts on
the accessibility thread later.

Best regards,
Peter.



On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 8:06 PM, Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken <
tsiegman@wiley.com> wrote:

> Hi Peter,
>
>
>
> There are details that are different. For example, ultimately there will
> be a detailed Accessibility API mapping for Math as there is for HTML,
> ARIA, and SVG, but I would love it the world would come to understand that
> accessibility is a subset of machine readability. Accessibility APIs are a
> specialized kind of machine. If we are working on machine readable math, we
> need to make sure that those specialized machines can read the math too.
> Otherwise we will do the work twice.
>
>
>
> Tzviya
>
>
>
> *Tzviya Siegman*
>
> Digital Book Standards & Capabilities Lead
>
> Wiley
>
> 201-748-6884
>
> tsiegman@wiley.com
>
>
>
> *From:* Peter Krautzberger [mailto:peter.krautzberger@mathjax.org]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 04, 2016 11:01 AM
> *To:* public-mathonwebpages@w3.org
> *Cc:* public-mathonw.
> *Subject:* RE: conversation starters
>
>
>
> Hi Tzviya,
>
> Would you like to create a spin off thread?
>
> (Obviously I saw a difference but I'd be interested to hear what you have
> in mind.)
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Peter.
>
>
>
> On May 4, 2016 4:38 PM, "Siegman, Tzviya - Hoboken" <tsiegman@wiley.com>
> wrote:
>
> I’m interested in a11y and machine readability (and the intersection of
> the two, because really, why do we treat these like they are different
> issues?)
>
>
>
> *Tzviya Siegman*
>
> Digital Book Standards & Capabilities Lead
>
> Wiley
>
> 201-748-6884
>
> tsiegman@wiley.com
>
>
>
> *From:* Peter Krautzberger [mailto:peter.krautzberger@mathjax.org]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 04, 2016 6:17 AM
> *To:* public-mathonw.
> *Subject:* conversation starters
>
>
>
> Hi math-on-webpages,
>
>
>
> Here's a short list of topics to start a conversation. These four came up
> on the call, feel free to add.
>
>
>
> If you're interested, just
>
>
>
> * spin off a new thread (change subject in your reply)
>
> * comment or +1 so that we can
>
> * team up for some dedicated conversations
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> Peter.
>
>
>
> **layout**
>
>
>
> Whether CSS, SVG, or canvas, if you're interested in talking about math
> layout on the web, let's collect best practices, use cases, and analyze
> gaps in the OWP.
>
>
>
> **accessibility*
>
>
>
> If you're working on making math accessible -- ARIA, speech, braille,
> internationalization etc.
>
>
>
> **editing**
>
>
>
> Web-based editing touches virtually everything -- layout, interaction,
> accessibility -- but gathering information unique to the challenges of
> editing would be worthwhile.
>
>
>
> **machine readability**
>
>
>
> Exposing information to machines, I hear it's a thing -- JSON, microdata,
> RDFa etc.
>
>
>