[Blindmath] JAWS and Nemeth - Newbie question

Fri Feb 18 17:52:33 UTC 2011

I'm on board!

Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson
Sent: Friday, February 18, 2011 10:34 AM
To: SusanOsterhaus at tsbvi.edu; Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] JAWS and Nemeth - Newbie question

What do people think about creating a web-based petition for screen
reader vendors to add Nemeth support for refreshable braille?
I know we may only get a handful of signatures but, perhaps, we could
get a few dozens, even a hundred. But this would create a focus point
for the effort and we could give a specific action item to people who
want to request such accessibility upgrade.
Instead of saying "please ask your screen reader vendor for improved
math support", we could say "we are collecting signatures from those
interested in improve math support, please go to page x and sign the
electronic petition if you want to help".
I know this worked well for the WayFinder refund demand when Vodafone
discontinued the product. They got almost 3000 signatures. This is an
entirely different beast, but the same method might work well, and
might help people who confuse Susan and Steve.
What do people think about this?
-Birkir

On 2/18/11, Susan Osterhaus <osterhauss at tsbvi.edu> wrote:
> Steve,
>
> I have heard exactly the same line from vendors: "We have never heard from
> any of our customers that they actually want to use Nemeth braille with our
> product." They have also told me that I am one of the few or only person to
> request math support. I wonder how they got us confused; we don't even look
> alike! I'm sure that many of you have heard the same quote. Every time I
> give a presentation, I beg each and everyone in the audience to speak out
> because of this, and I sure hope that there are a lot of "us" speaking up.
>
> Susan
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of Stephen L Noble
> Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 6:24 PM
> To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] JAWS and Nemeth - Newbie question
>
> By the way, there's a crucial subtext to this issue which is often
> overlooked: that vendors of assistive technology need to hear as much
> input from customers as possible. I often have conversations with
> developers about something they need to support, and I am told that I am
> the one of the few (sometimes they say I am the only) persons who has
> ever said anything about the need for math support.  Case in point, I
> specifically asked the product manager of a widely used screen reader
> about supporting Nemeth in their refreshable braille display output and
> I was told, "We have never heard from any of our customers that they
> actually want to use Nemeth braille with our product." Believe it or
> not, that is a quote.
>
> So, the moral of this lesson is none of us should be satisfied with the
> response that "our product cannot do what you need." I suspect everybody
> on this list believes that braille support for mathematics is a vital
> issue, so if everybody on this list started sending emails or made phone
> calls to tell the company that makes the products he/she uses that
> supporting math (including Nemeth braille) should be considered
> mandatory.
>
> --Steve Noble
> steve.noble at louisville.edu
> 502-969-3088
>
>>>> "Kodeswaran, Balaji" <bkodeswaran at air.org> 2/17/2011 3:32 PM >>>
> Jose,
>
> Thank you for your response. However, I am unclear on how I get Nemeth
> to the RBD through JAWS? On our website, say we are rendering the
> content as MathML. I am told (by JAWS tech support) that JAWS cannot
> convert MathML to Nemeth. Also, since our users are primarily Firefox
> users, they won't have the benefit of MathPlayer (although it is not
> clear what this provides for IE/JAWS users in this regard). Our thoughts
> were to see if we could transcribe to Nemeth (Grade 1), stick into the
> web page in a hidden DIV next to the MathML and see if there are any
> ARIA (or JAWS specific markup tags) that we could put on the page to
> send this Nemeth to the Braille display.
>
> Thanks
>
>
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>
>
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