[Blindmath] Issues with electronic math files and screen readers/braille displays

Thu May 10 12:44:49 UTC 2012

I might point out that MathPlayer 3 has the capacity to implement math braille support as well. Several years back I had a development version of MathPlayer which had integrated John Boyer's liblouis translator, which can give you Nemeth math code from MathML. I had asked the folks at Freedom Scientific about hooking it up to their refreshable brialle display and they told me that as far as they knew no blind people wanted to read math on a braille display. Of course, that has been about four years ago. One lesson learned is that people need to let the vendors know about the importance of making math accessible, whether one is talking to assistive technology vendors, textbook publishers, test publishers, mainstream technology manufactures, etc. Every link in the chain is important.

So going back to the original poster, if the state of Michigan would start contacting vendors now about plans for using MathML in the state math assessment in 2014, then you should have time on your side. This will give the vendors the time they need to make sure it will be ready to go. I should also point out that having MathML in the state assessment would not only benefit the blind students, but also many more students who are not blind but use reading technology like TextHelp's Read & Write or the Kurzweil 3000 system due to a learning disability. There far more LD students who will need read-aloud accommodations on the state assessment but they can use the same MathML content as the blind students, so that is often a good point to make when trying to argue for an accessible on-line state assessment.

--Steve Noble   
________________________________________
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] on behalf of Michael Whapples [mwhapples at aim.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2012 6:17 AM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Issues with electronic math files and screen   readers/braille displays

While Niel and design science are one of the few companies which are
making effort in making maths accessible, I still have a bad feeling
that entirely relying on electronic form for tests may end up not being
a good move for those who use screen readers or Braille, probably
particularly for those who use Braille.

As an example, mathplayer which makes maths in a web page (math included
in the MathML format) accessible to screen readers, does it by creating
a string describing the equation in words and presenting that to the
screen reader. While it may speak it OK, the problem is that it isn't
easy to navigate through should the person reading need to find a
specific part of the equation and the Braille display will only show
words of the equation rather than proper Braille maths (eg. Nemeth
notation).

As an example of what I mean, take the equation a/b=c, MathPlayer will
show this to a screen reader as:
Fraction ay , over b end fraction equals c
That will be what one would read on a Braille display when using
MathPlayer and what one has to cursor through if you wanted to find what
is on the bottom of the fraction.

While it may not be too bad for such a short example, think what it can
get like with longer equations (eg. even the quadratic formula).

Other solutions tend to make use of the LaTeX notation to make maths
accessible, and if you don't know what that is then it sort of proves
what I say as a draw back to it, it requires people to know the LaTeX
notation to be able to understand the maths and for some LaTeX isn't the
right solution as they don't have much maths to deal with and so the
investment of time to learn LaTeX is not worth it. Also LaTeX was not
really designed as a reading notation (its really a document preparation
language) and I feel sometimes the effort to understand the LaTeX
notation while reading can get in the way of understanding the maths,
others may disagree with this.

Sorry if I sound a bit negative, I hope Niel can come up with something
suitable and its also good you are asking while there is some time to
get it sorted.

Michael Whapples
On 10/05/2012 01:47, Patricia Balassone wrote:
> Thank you for your offer, I will be glad to forward your information. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my suggestions and concerns are heard. 'Course crossing my fingers does make it harder to braille =)
> Pat
>
>>>> Neil Soiffer<NeilS at dessci.com>  05/09/12 7:37 PM>>>
> As the risk of being too commercial -- please have them contact me (
> neils at dessci.com).  We have products that can be used as part of other
> products that can help make the math accessible beyond a web page.
>
> I don't want to sound pessimistic, but based on past experiences, math
> usually loses out in the last minute rush to get it all working.  It's
> great that you are asking the questions early though -- maybe they will do
> the work before it is too late.  You need to push REALLY hard though to
> make sure it doesn't become the all too familiar refrain:  "we had higher
> priority items we needed to do".
>
> Neil Soiffer
> Senior Scientist
> Design Science, Inc.
> www.dessci.com
> ~ Makers of MathType, MathFlow, MathPlayer, MathDaisy, Equation Editor ~
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 12:25 PM, Patricia Balassone<
> Patricia.Balassone at lansingschools.net>  wrote:
>
>> A very good question and one that I do not yet have an answer. It could be
>> either since the test will be available state-wide, I'm thinking a program
>> installed on Windows to prevent unauthorized access. I will have more
>> information next week.
>> Pat
>>
>>>>> Ryan Hemphill<ryanhemphill.email at gmail.com>  05/09/12 3:16 PM>>>
>> Is this going to be a web-based system, or program installed on Windows?
>>
>> Ryan
>>
>> On Wed, May 9, 2012 at 12:43 PM, Patricia Balassone<
>> Patricia.Balassone at lansingschools.net>  wrote:
>>
>>> I enjoy reading posts from the BlindMath listserve, although I admit I
>>> don’t understand a lot of what is discussed. That being said, I’m looking
>>> for some input as to the difficulties encountered when creating an
>>> electronic math document that can be understood with screen readers and
>>> braille displays. Beginning in 2014, the state assessment tests that our
>>> high school students are required to take will only be available via
>>> computer-generated programs. I will be talking with some of the people
>> who
>>> are responsible for creating the programs to administer these tests and I
>>> want to use this opportunity to help make them aware of the issues
>> specific
>>> to braille readers. I realize I may be asking for a lot of information,
>> so
>>> it might be easier to have conversations offlist.
>>> Thank you for any help you can give,
>>> Patricia Balassone
>>> VI parapro
>>> Sexton High School
>>> Lansing MI USA
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