[Blindmath] Introduction

[Andrew Stacey]

Dear Blindmath Community,

I've just joined your mailing list, and would like to bombard you with some
questions, so thought I should introduce myself first.  I learnt about your
list from Michael Whapples, via a comment on Terrence Tao's blog about
displaying mathematics on the web (I believe that he has mentioned this
discussion in a comment on this list before I joined).

I am a mathematician, currently living in Norway.  I am particularly
interested in using technology to make my (i.e. a mathematician's) job easier.
One part of this is in using technology to improve our communication of
mathematics, both to other mathematicians and to the wider community.  In
particular, I am one of the team behind the n-lab project
(http://ncatlab.org/nlab) which is a sort of "open lab book" for
mathematicians (and a few others).

This brings up the issue of accessibility.  In making our mathematics
available, we need to think about how our audience will access it.  It's very
easy to design a website that looks alright to me, but that's no guarantee
that it will be accessible to all.  So I was pleased to learn of this list
from Michael and would love to learn from you, in particular get some guidance
on how best to make a website accessible to partially sighted and blind users.

This issue has recently taken on a more personal note for me as none of my
children have perfect vision.  I don't think that any would qualify as
partially sighted: the one with the worst vision should still be able to drive
a car when he's older, but it has made me think a little more about how much
they will be able to use a computer, especially given how much an integral
part of our lives computers now are.

As I said, I shall shortly be bombarding you with questions - I hope you don't
mind this - but thought it polite to provide a little background as to why I'm
asking them first.

Andrew Stacey