a11y

This repo is for the development and testing of accessible components in Ximera.

Our intial strategy

We are not opiniated concerning the technical background; however, in our disucssions, ARIA has been brought up quite a bit. Note some of the links below dispute this and suggest we "should prefer using the correct semantic HTML element over using ARIA."

• https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA
• https://www.w3.org/TR/html-aria/

Four cases

I believe there are four cases for Ximera Accessibility.

Navigating BETWEEN sections

OSU has cards and KU Leuven has a more traditional "table of contents." Out plan is to adopt KU Leuven's format.

Navigating WITHIN an activity

Ximera documents are already "somewhat" accessible in this domain. However, it could surely be improved.

\answer

The command \answer first needs to be implemented in a modern version of TeX4ht/MathJax. We should look at how standard forms work and emulate this, see: https://www.w3.org/WAI/tutorials/forms/ . With that said, it needs to automatically have

• "Blank answer box"
• "Answered with TYPED-ANSWER not evaluated."
• "Answered with TYPED-ANSWER incorrect."
• "Answered with TYPED-ANSWER complete." After that, it will need an additional optional argument alt='STRING' that will give additional information about the answer, for example:

\[
\begin{pmatrix}
3           &   2 \\
\answer[alt='entry 2 1']{1}  &   1
\end{pmatrix}
\]

This additional text would be prepended to the previous statement, so in this example it would read

• "entry 2 1 Blank answer box"
• "entry 2 1 Answered with TYPED-ANSWER not evaluated."
• "entry 2 1 Answered with TYPED-ANSWER incorrect."
• "entry 2 1 Answered with TYPED-ANSWER complete."

Math and Images

All "4-function calculator math" should be read. However, when math becomes much more complicated (or is an image), it should be given a static alternative description. At the level of LaTeX, we would like to handle this in the following way: \alt{} within an environment (including math-mode, and display-math) will obliterate all content within that envirnment except for:

• other \alt and
• \answer So for example, we would like to be able to write:

\[
\alt{a 2 by 2 matrix with answer boxes in each entry}
\begin{pmatrix}
\answer[alt='entry 1 1']{3}  &   \answer[alt='entry 1 2']{2} \\
\answer[alt='entry 2 1']{1}  &   \answer[alt='entry 2 2']{1}
\end{pmatrix}
\]

Multiple \alt are allowed, with the \alt and \answer being read left to right, top to bottom. The example above would be read:

"a 2 by 2 matrix with answer boxes in each entry, entry 1 1 blank answer box, entry 1 2 blank answer box, entry 2 1 blank answer box, entry 2 2 blank answer box."

Other

For some (perhaps) helpful links/discussions, see:

• latex3/tagging-project#72
• https://ctan.org/pkg/catdvi?lang=en (catdvi)
• https://ctan.org/pkg/srcltx?lang=en (srcltx)
• https://ctan.org/pkg/dvi2tty?lang=en (dvi2tty)
• https://unplannedobsolescence.com/blog/behavior-belongs-in-html/
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26007744/image-overlay-on-site-but-keeping-content-clickable
• https://jacobbartlett.substack.com/p/oh-sht-my-app-is-successful-and-i (a11y discussion)
• https://ctan.org/pkg/axessibility?lang=en

For PDF

See

• https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1H1fNuuSVnwgtKONojRLZvUpWPvfV__avWT_rpYZR-Ro/edit#slide=id.p
• https://mirror.mwt.me/ctan/macros/latex/contrib/accsupp/accsupp.pdf
• Try built-in screen readers.

Some notes on Ximera commands

• \answer needs default alt-text of "unanswered" that is replaced with "answered VALUE Correct/Incorrect" after answering.
• \answer needs optional argument alt={my groovy text} which modifies the default by "'my groovy text' unanswered" or "'my groovy text' answered VALUE"
• Math mode could default to mathml if no alt-text is given
• The text given by accessibility could be the underlying text in the browser DVI
• \wordChoice needs to default to radio buttons
• \multipleChoice needs to default to radio buttons
• \selectAll needs to default to checkboxes
• Is it even possible (within latex) to compile in such a way that a model such as:

\[
\alt{here}
Text to be replaced?
\]

\[
\alt{two plus two equals}
2+2 = \answer{4} %% answer would have its own alt manifestation
\]

A different model (though perhaps impractical) is:

\alt{Text to be shown}
\alt{Some message in the middle of the text}

%% and

\alt[Text to be replaced]{text to be shown}
\alt[\[ 2+2=\answer{4} \]]{two plus two}

A different model yet

%% use options for environments like so:

\begin{environment}[alt]
Something complicated
\end{environment}`
%% Here, we would have a file, that has all the "alt" text of the document.
%% Math mode and answer would automatically be included.

Another idea We implemnet \alt for injecting random text. Then all math mode, \answer, \tabular, image automatically get alt entires in some document.