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Consider Roman numeral use #4223

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StephDriver opened this issue May 31, 2024 · 1 comment
Open

Consider Roman numeral use #4223

StephDriver opened this issue May 31, 2024 · 1 comment
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a11y Issues that relate to acessibility VPAT Issue prioritised for VPAT improvements.

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@StephDriver
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Roman numerals are difficult to make accessible, such that the general advice on how to do so, boils down to don't. This was noted during screen reader testing (#4194).

  • Sample 3, item 16. first section heading is correctly an H2, but the I. Roman numeral denoting it as the first section does not get read out as "one" but "I" get later for section 2, the "II." is read out as 2. This is a problem with the screenreader not being able to distinguish for single 'I' that it is a roman numeral. Similar issues are known with other single letter Roman numerals. See notes.
  • Sample 3, item 36. use of Roman Numerals within the text (not just as headings) to denote a list within the paragraph, for example: It might refer (i) to actual results, i.e., to the empirical impact—if that can be measured—that each lie actually has on the enterprise of human communication. Or (ii) it might refer and so on. The initial (i) is read as i and then the (ii) as 2 - see notes on Roman numerals.
  • Sample Other, item 11. Roman numerals are not just a screen reader A11y issue. There doesn't seem to be an accepted solution, with general advice being to limit their use. WC3 guidance is to avoid the use of Roman Numerals and unfamiliar symbols in text where possible.

We need to consider how to handle Roman Numerals. We could simply ban them from the platform, but I suspect it would be more acceptable to users for us to allow them in specific use-cases and have very specific ways to use them for those with work arounds to make that as accessible as possible, for example, section numbering and list numbering. Note this is not just a screen-reader issue, but roman numerals for numbering can be difficult across multiple types of impairment.

@StephDriver StephDriver added the a11y Issues that relate to acessibility label May 31, 2024
@mauromsl
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mauromsl commented Jun 4, 2024

For the specific conflict between ASCII characters and roman numerals, we could recommend the use of the Unicode characters (as one would do for other numeral systems) which should be more explicit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numerals_in_Unicode

@StephDriver StephDriver added the VPAT Issue prioritised for VPAT improvements. label Jun 27, 2024
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Labels
a11y Issues that relate to acessibility VPAT Issue prioritised for VPAT improvements.
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