WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Superscript tag and HTML

for

From: Lars Ballieu Christensen
Date: Sep 10, 2022 4:59AM


Looking at this from an accessibility perspective, you could argue this is likely not a matter whether superscript is pronounced or not. Superscript by itself is used for a variety of purposes - as a footnote reference, as "power of" in math expressions and so on. Hence, superscript by itself is ambiguous ... as much as other visual markers such as italics and bold. To have a screenreader render it correctly, I would argue that the underlying content should be implemented for what it is (e.g., a foot note reference, as a math object; and then leave it up to the assistive technology to render it correctly in audio, in print, in Braille and so forth.

Venligst/Kind regards

Lars
----
Lars Ballieu Christensen
RÃ¥dgiver/Adviser, Ph.D., M.Sc., Sensus ApS
Specialister i tilgængelighed/Accessibility Consultants
Tel: +45 48 22 10 03 – Mobil: +45 40 32 68 23 - Skype: Ballieu
Mail: <EMAIL REMOVED> – Web: https://www.sensus.dk

Vi arbejder for et tilgængeligt og rummeligt informationssamfund
Working for an accessible and inclusive information society



On 10/09/2022, 03.01, "WebAIM-Forum on behalf of Mark Weiler" < <EMAIL REMOVED> on behalf of <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

I'm asking so a screen read user has the option. Can you provide a bit more instruction on how to do it with JAWS? I checked the Speech and Sound Scheme's attribute tab, which has superscript listed but it didn't work on two test documents. All my verbosity settings are high. I'm using Chrome. Someone explained to me how to change the setting in NVDA and I verified it works.
On Friday, September 9, 2022 at 05:31:26 p.m. EDT, Jonathan Cohn < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

It can be read, just the default settings prevent it. Generally, Screen Reader users on the web want as clean a reading of information as possible..For example imagine a standard price tag where the cents part of the price is in a super script:It would sound like price 9 dollars start superscript 99 end super script.If the superscript is ignored you will probably get:Price 9hundred and ninety nine dollars. Admittedly this is not much better.

Best wishes,

Jonathan Cohn




On Sep 9, 2022, at 5:13 PM, Mark Weiler < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
I noticed that the HTML superscript tag, SUP, isn't being spoken as such by JAWS or NVDA. I put JAWS into default user mode too. However, when in a Word document, the superscript is properly read. Any ideas?