[Blindmath] Press Release: MathType 6.5 for Windows is available

[Neil Soiffer]

MathType doesn't work with JAWS and Windows-Eyes because:

1.  We haven't done the work to make it accessible
2.  Even if we did, we haven't gotten an sense of interest from them about
doing the work needed to call the interfaces to get speech out.

MathPlayer does work to a limited extent with those and other screen
readers.  But we have the ability to generate braille and the ability to
product higher quality speech, and they won't do the work needed to make use
of those facilities because "none of our customers have said they will buy
an upgrade if we improve our math handling abilities."

We have gotten some interest from smaller vendors. If you use JAWS or
Window-Eyes and ever want to get braille on your braille display or get
better speech, you need to tell them that math support is important. I've
said "YOU need to send them email" many times, but I've only heard from two
people that they have done so. Better math support in your screen reader
simply isn't going to happen if people don't take two minutes to write email
to your vendor. This applies to people who use open source software also.

    Neil


On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 1:59 PM, Steve Jacobson <steve.jacobson at visi.com>wrote:

> Remind me, why doesn't this product work with Window-eyes or JFW now?
>
> On Wed, 3 Dec 2008 12:00:05 -0800, Neil Soiffer wrote:
>
> >Since Michael opened the door a little, let me barge through and shout
> once
> >again that if people (and that means YOU) don't contact your AT vendor
> >(Freedom Scientific, GW Micro, etc) and let them know that math
> >accessibility is something that you would buy an upgrade for, they won't
> do
> >the work to integrate our and other's products with theirs.  They care
> about
> >paying customers and it is up to YOU to let them know that math
> >accessibility is important.  Developers of open source products need to
> know
> >also -- although development may be driven more by what interests a
> >developer in open source, it is still true that if people say "this
> feature
> >will cause me to use your product", that feature is much more likely to be
> >worked on.
>
> >If you didn't contact your AT vendor after my earlier harangue on this
> >subject, please do so now -- every single message they get  from customers
> >makes a difference.
>
> >    Neil
>
>
> >On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com>
> wrote:
>
> >> I had been wondering what it might do, but I came to the same conclusion
> >> that for those very familiar with word then just learning the math TeX
> isn't
> >> such a steep learning curve.
> >>
> >> Is this really the best solution, probably not. I am sure that this work
> >> that Neil and design Science are putting into accessibility will help
> >> people, but sometimes I wonder whether these work arounds (relying on
> the
> >> TeX features of MathType) do improve things in the long term as some AT
> >> providers might say "well you can use it that way why do we need to do
> >> anything" without really understanding the problems and how work on
> their
> >> side might improve math accessibility. Neil's earlier comment about
> users
> >> requesting math accessibility in their AT probably is the way things
> need to
> >> go for the long term.
> >>
> >> Michael Whapples
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