Consider addition of a property for input controls to provide untranslated Unicode Braille Patterns (U+2800..U+28FF)

[samdooley]

This issue is being posted there at Joanie's request as a place to start the discussion around how to provide untranslated Unicode braille input codes from a screen reader to a web application. We're not saying that this should necessarily be an ARIA feature, but it seemed that this would be a good place to start the discussion.

Example: A math editor has a visual user interface that is designed to accept and interpret Unicode braille symbols produced by a braille device, and would like to distinguish input events for braille symbols from input events for ascii characters from a computer keyboard. The math editor is prepared to accept key events that include a property that would indicate a braille key press in the Unicode braille range U+2800 to U+28FF to indicate the braille key combination.

[jcsteh]

nvaccess/nvda#8340 proposes aria-braille-input. I wonder whether it might be better to have aria-text-input-type="braille" or similar. This would be akin to the type attribute on the HTML input element (but only for text types).

[jwmerrill]

As a concrete use case for this feature, the Desmos four function and scientific calculators are able to accept mathematical input and display mathematical output in either Nemeth or UEB.

• Intro video: http://learn.desmos.com/braille
• Calculator (to activate braille mode, open the settings "wrench" menu, and choose Nemeth or UEB): https://www.desmos.com/scientific
• Documentation about using Braille input: https://www.desmos.com/accessibility#braille

Currently, for this feature to work, we have to ask users to switch their input into "uncontracted 8-dot computer braille" (the terminology varies platform-to-platform). This is necessary because contractive Braille tables (which are very commonly used) will expand certain Braille cells as contractions and interfere with our ability to interpret the user input as Nemeth.

We have found that asking users to switch their input table can be a significant hurdle; especially for students and teachers who may not be expert screen reader users.

If we could hint to the screen reader that a particular input knows how to handle raw Braille characters, then users could enter Nemeth or UEB math into the calculator without having to switch their system-wide input table.

[clapierre]

This is very important for us at Benetech and the DIAGRAM Center as we are working currently on a web based digital math editor (called MathShare) and being able to have raw braille input into our editor will be crucial for those students using braille as their input modality into our editor. We have just received funding to continue to work on MathShare from Cisco Foundation and General Motors

[pkra]

Just to write down what I said on today's call before it started formally. I'd be happy to spec this out for 1.3 (alongside the other braille properties) but I really don't know enough about input. So if the group can figure out how this can work, I'm happy to write it up and iterate.