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Mike Masnick ✅

Does anyone know how well screenreaders handle unicode here? For a while I was using unicode on the other site to bold and italicize stuff, but someone pointed out that screenreaders trip over them there so I stopped.

So, for example if I do: "𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗱" does that work?

@mmasnick : good question. This might be something for !

@mmasnick This works for me. I’m using the Mastodon iOS app.

@scottintokyo you should be able to see it just fine. Was just wondering about screenreaders that read it outloud.

@mmasnick Doh. I realized that right after hitting Publish.

@mmasnick
Have you downloaded and installed NVDA? It’s free and has most screenreader functionality that the expensive one’s do.

@mmasnick screenreaders not handling Unicode characters properly is a pretty universal problem, it won’t be much different here

@videah i figured that would be the case, but was wondering...

@mmasnick No, this still does not work. It will read out as "mathematical bold small <x>" and stuff. Unicode and screenreaders are not site specific, they will read the same regardless of location.

Markdown support would help this significantly, though, and I hope that comes soon.

For now, I would still avoid using unicode tricks for text flourishes.

@mmasnick Safari 16.1/ Mac Ventura reads that as "...if I do: does that work?".

No sign of "bold" in the read back at all.

@mmasnick Yes, although I imagine screenreaders will have exactly the same amount of trouble. But if your instance supports it (am using Mastodon v3.2.1) you can also format in Markdown: italics, bold, bold italics, typewriter, links, bold italic typewriter links. Pleroma has a similar feature. For Fraktur, blackboard bold, and script you still need to resort to Unicode.

Actually am not sure how much of that is going to work because the “Markdown” implementation in Mastodon is super janky and has a lot of problems. Let’s see!

TechdirtTechdirt

@mmasnick Actually on Qoto (my instance) and on Mathstodon we can use LaTeX with Mathjax: \[\mathbb R, \mathcal R\], and maybe even \[\mathscr R, \mathrsfs R\]. But on #Qoto Mathjax is kind of broken, and when the post gets syndicated to other instances it just shows up as raw LaTeX code unless they install Mathjax too.

Everyone ought to, because if people are discussing things without being able to use equations, there's really no hope of coming to agreement on basic facts, and Mathjax makes it enormously easier to use equations.

(Edited: I screwed up the Mathjax delimiters! Possibly because of Markdown actually.)

@mmasnick Every time I see a post with fancy Unicode on Twitter I inevitably see posts below it complaining so I assume not good.

Which is kinda unacceptable IMO. People have been doing that on Twitter for years. Screen reader software vendors should have stepped up by now.

@toadking @mmasnick but how exactly would you do this? “Unicode says this symbol means “x”, but because a bunch of people think it looks like “y” on sites that don’t support formatting, we’re going to guess the user wants to hear “y”?” Using Unicode this way is a fundamentally inaccessible hack.

@stephencass @mmasnick Yes. Screen readers should know when they see "DOUBLE-STRUCK ITALIC CA­PI­TAL D" that it should be treated as a D.

@toadking @mmasnick Sure, for such a code it should treat as D. But look at the concrete example given by the OP: the unicode name for that b is MATHEMATICAL SANS-SERIF BOLD SMALL B. The "sans-serif bold small b" I'll agree could be condensed to "b", but there's still that "mathematical."

@stephencass @mmasnick You don't say "mathematical x" in algebra, you just say "x". You don't say "mathematical e" when referring to Euler's number, you just say "e". Screen readers should do the same thing.

@mmasnick Most non-Mastodon server software (Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, etc.) already support Markdown formatting, which allows you to italicize, bold, strikethrough, etc. (Click the options to see this post on my instance as an example) It currently disappears when federated to Mastodon instances though; you’ll just have to wait for Mastodon to implement it too.

@mmasnick I see at bold on my instance, so looks good.

@mmasnick I don't think it's ever going to work like you want. The similar-looking characters are for esoteric (usually mathematic) purposes, and not formatting.

@pmcg some servers have implemented markdown, so it seems like that's the most likely solution.

@mmasnick Tried it on TalkBack on Android and it was read out just fine. (however no indication of the word being in bold font)

@mmasnick a very quick and dirty way to check on iOS is to select text and choose ‘Speak’. In this example it skips over the Unicode, so just says “do does”. You get the same behaviour when you check the text in VoiceOver.

@mmasnick I depend on my #ScreenReaders (mostly #Siri), but I don't think that I've ever heard her indicate whether a word was accented by any means other than those influenced by punctuation. Of course settings, features, and tech would all be contributing factors.

I'd pay for a #reader that is able to reliably read only the main body and not the fluff, but then again someone might confuse #accessibility with a restriction of #capitalism, so #sacrifices are made.

@mmasnick Unicode bold/italic is not handled well anywhere – that's not site-dependent, it's simply how screen readers work. I haven't used mastodon.social, but infosec.exchange lets you use both markdown and HTML in your posts, so you can use proper bold and italic (and more if you wish).

@mmasnick Although those Unicode characters render as bold letters in most environments, they actually represent distinct meanings. In this case, they belong to a mathematical symbols range. As such, it would be incorrect of a screenreader to treat it as an English word.

Unicode encodes characters, not their rendering, visually or otherwise. Bolding and such should be done by other means, which Mastodon unfortunately doesn't provide.