Org mode export accessibility (was: About 'inline special blocks')

[Ihor Radchenko]

Tim Cross <theophilusx@gmail.com> writes:

> Sadly, org isn't great from an accessibility perspective. This is
> something I would like to see improved, but it is a huge and complex
> task. There are some 'easy' winds we could try. For example, org still
> defaults to using the <b></b> and <i></i> tags instead of
> <strong></strong> and <em></em>. Likewise, we should move to html5 as
> the default, not xhtml, but last time I raised that, there was
> considerable push back to stick with xhtml. We also need complete
> overhaul of the use of aria tags and numerous other areas. As I said, a
> very large job which is complex and extremely time consuming. 

I will not argue about html5 switch - I don't have enough knowledge to
weigh on this.

However, can't we at least address accessibility issues with the
existing HTML export? A good starting point could be identifying what
can be improved in ox-html.el.

> Sadly, I'm not sure there is a lot we can do with accessibility and PDFs
> in org mode. This is the one area where TeX/LaTeX does a poor job. Last
> time I looked, there was considerable discussion about what to do from
> an accessibility standpoint in the TeX community, but seemed to be
> little or very slow progress (not a criticism of the efforts of members
> of that community, but rather a reflection of how complicated this stuff
> is).

>From Org perspective, we can do what is available in the exported
format. If LaTeX is not great from accessibility point of view, is there
a better format? Or are there things we can do to improve situation in
ox-latex.el?

What about other export backends?

Best,
Ihor