[Blindmath] Somewhat positive yet disappointing press release

Fri May 27 03:56:26 UTC 2011

MathML is the standard that HTML5 uses for math expressions.  That is the
technology that Design Science works with.  However, making math accessible
even when it is encoded as MathML is non-trivial.  No matter what encoding
is used, math expressions are two-dimensional and some software must
translate that two-dimensional expression into a linear string of text for
speech or for braille. Neither translation is trivial, and for speech, the
words used in a good translation depend upon the context.  As an example,
"m/s" might be read as "m divided by s" or if 'm' and 's' are meters and
seconds, as "meters per second".  Notice that not only have the words used
for 'm' and 's' changed, but the word used for the operator "divided by"
changed to "per".

To date, no AT company has been willing to devote years of work to make math
accessible.  Indeed, getting them to spend even a few weeks on math
accessibility has proved difficult.  Design Science's MathPlayer acts as a
service for AT in that it produces speech strings given MathML.  MathPlayer
3 makes use of third party MathML-to-braille translators such as liblouis to
also provide several different braille math codes for use on refreshable
braille displays.  The services that MathPlayer provides only work if AT
calls them.  We have worked with standards groups to try and define standard
interfaces for math accessibility that anyone can implement... if they are
willing to take the time to do the implementation.

You used the word "war".  I'm not sure that is appropriate, but there is
definitely a "battle" to get authors to use MathML instead of images, but
that battle is slowly being won.  I gave a talk at CSUN entitled "7 Reasons
Why 2011 will be a Good Year for Math Accessibility" [1] that explains why I
think the tide will turn in that battle this year.

Winning that battle will mean nothing to you if the software you use doesn't
present the accessibile material to you in an accessible manner. We have
worked with several companies, including Freedom Scientific, to help them
take advantage of MathPlayer.  However, we have no power to make them take
advantage of all of the features MathPlayer provides.  Only you, their
customer, have that power.  What we develop as part of this grant will be
usable by any AT.  You need to tell them to use it.

Neil Soiffer
Senior Scientist
Design Science, Inc.
www.dessci.com

[1]
http://www.csunconference.org/index.cfm?EID=80000300&p=380&page=scheduledetail&LCID=4553&ECTID=0

On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Ken Perry <kperry at blinksoft.com> wrote:

> See this is where I have to ask.  If you use standards like html 5 and make
> sure that things are more than just accessible to screen readers it won't
> be
> hard for companies like FS to keep it accessible.  This shouldn't be a war
> against companies it should be a war to make Math accessible whether a
> person uses sight or sound or smell to read math.  If standards of the
> world
> are followed rather than making up a standard just for the blind then it
> won't be an issue.
>
> Ken
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org]
> On
> Behalf Of Neil Soiffer
> Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2011 4:13 PM
> To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Somewhat positive yet disappointing press release
>
> We are adding new functionality (eg, navigation for math and being able to
> read math directly in a word doc without saving to a web page first).
> Unless JAWS or other AT adds code to their product to take make the
> appropriate calls to the new interfaces that get defined, it won't pick up
> that new functionality.
>
> Neil Soiffer
> Senior Scientist
> Design Science, Inc.
> www.dessci.com
>
>
> On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 12:32 PM, Patti Mitchell <patti at 4dewitt.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Is Jaws using something else?
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org]
> > On
> > Behalf Of Neil Soiffer
> > Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2011 3:08 PM
> > To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
> > Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Somewhat positive yet disappointing press
> release
> >
> > We would like as many screen readers as possible to be part of this work.
> > Freedom Scientific did not want to participate in the grant, GW Micro
> did.
> > I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you want math support in
> your
> > AT, you need to make it very clear to your AT vendor that if they don't
> > support math well, you'll use a different product that does.
> >
> > Neil Soiffer
> > Senior Scientist
> > Design Science, Inc.
> > www.dessci.com
> > ~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor ~
> >
> >
> > On Thu, May 26, 2011 at 10:30 AM, Jose Tamayo <jtblas at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > In the press release below, JAWS is not mentioned at all.  This is
> > > such a significant press release yet a market player such as JAWS is
> > > not even mentioned, any reason?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > http://www.dessci.com/en/company/press/releases/110524.htm
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > http://www.
> > >
> > > dessci.com/en/company/press/releases/110524.htm
> > >
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
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