Description:

In digital books, many authors and publishers include math by using an image. While MathML is recommended, some will still deliver an image with alt text. When the role on the image is set to math, i.e., role="math" NVD is notperforming as expected. We would expect:

• You should be able to do first letter navigation, i.e., press "g" to go to the graphic.
• You should be able to read the alt text by word or character.

Steps to reproduce:

1. visit Test for ARIA Math Role on an Image
2. Read the page, which contains an image of a math expression that includes alt text. It has a role="math".
3. Notice that the alt text is read as a single line.
4. Try to read the alt text by word or character, which you cannot do.
5. Go to the top of the page and in browse mode using single letter navigation hit "g" to go to graphic, and you will not find the image.

Actual behavior:

Example speech output from the sample referenced.

This marks the spot where speech viewer started to capture the output. The page is visited and we get:
Begin speech viewer output
enter
Test for ARIA Math Role on an Image document
heading level 1 Test for ARIA Math Role on an Image
up arrow
heading level 1 Test for ARIA Math Role on an Image
down arrow
heading level 2 Introduction
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This test is to evaluate how assistive technologies interpret an image with math role and
down arrow
alternative text.
down arrow
heading level 2 Test
down arrow
Quadratic formula: x=⟮−b±√⟮b²−4ac⟯⟯÷2a
right arrow
space
ctrl+right arrow
space
ctrl+home
heading level 1 Test for ARIA Math Role on an Image
no next graphic

End speech viewer output

Notice that the alt text is read, but cannot be navigated. Also notice that with single letter navigation, the graphic (img) is not found.

Expected behavior:

The expected behavior is to have the ability to read alt text by character and word. Also, because it is a graphic, you should be able to go to it by hitting the letter G.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

Not aplickable.

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

NVDA is installed on this computer.

NVDA version:

About NVDA NonVisual Desktop Access (NVDA)
Version: 2023.3 (2023.3.0.29780)
URL: https://www.nvaccess.org/
Copyright (C) 2006-2

Windows version:

About Windows Microsoft Windows
Version 23H2 (OS Build 22631.2861)
©

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

This behavior is with the browsers Chrome, Edge, and Firefox latest version.
The Chrome version is: Version 120.0.6099.199 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

Yes

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

We noticed this vehavior on the previous version of NVDA as well.

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

Yes, when all add-ons are disabled the behavior is the same.

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

Yes!