Breton,
Except for the most basic of equation, I don't believe that solution is
practical. In the absence of the full symbolism contained in the equation,
the meaning of the equation becomes lost very, very quickly.
For example, the equations contained in this graphic -
http://www.xycoon.com/images/nor010.gif - are not terribly complicated, but
as you start to read it out into words, it becomes extremely verbose and
confused. Function of capital x equals exponential raised to the power of
minus one half times capital x minus mu divided by sigma raised to the power
of 2 all divided by sigma times the square root of two times pi.
You've also now lost some of the meaning of the equation - mu is the
expected value of a normal probability distribution; capital X is the
expected value of a sample from the population with normal probably
distribution; and sigma is the population standard deviation. Now, granted,
someone familiar with mathematics would know this, but in the symbolic
representation of the equation the meaning is clear and embedded.
Looking at the example you provided, is this to mean (x/2)^y or x/(2^y)?
An enormous degree of care would be required to accurately, and
unambiguously translate the symbolic representation of the equation into
English.
Best regards
Steve Baty
2008/9/22 Breton Slivka [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Might I suggest quite simply, that in the alt attribute, you write in
english, basically what you would say if you were to read the
mathematical expression out loud? This has the best chance of being
converted into something comprehensible by a screen reader. I am
assuming of course that screen readers typically have no built in
facility for dealing with mathematical expressions. For example,
something like X over 2, raised to the power of Y I'm pretty sure
there's a fairly traditional language used for reading math
expressions, though I don't know of any references.
On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Andrew Ivin [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
Hi all,
We are implementing mathematical equations on one of our websites.
Unfortunately, we are not able to implement a MathML or LaTex type
solution at this stage (developer time and budget constraints)
So, we are putting these equations up as graphics.
I'm wondering the best way of giving these graphics alt attributes -
both for web browsers and screen readers.
If there are any suggestions, they would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
--
Andrew
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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--
--
Steve 'Doc' Baty B.Sc (Maths), M.EC, MBA
Principal Consultant
Meld Consulting
M: +61 417 061 292
E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
UX Statistics: http://uxstats.blogspot.com
Member, UPA - www.upassoc.org
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Member, IxDA - www.ixda.org
Contributor - UXMatters - www.uxmatters.com
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