[BlindMath] Accessible math Content

Tue Jul 16 19:09:09 UTC 2019

Some inside baseball, but we offered all of the MathPlayer approach to VFO
and the Jaws team for absolutely free. We spent three years and hundreds of
thousands of dollars of government funding to make what I feel is the most
incredible advance in mathematics accessibility since the invention of
Nemeth code. I could go to Wikipedia and read mathematics, not only with
speech, but have the calculus and differential equations showing up on my
Braille display. I would have done anything for that when I was a high
school student. So, I agree with you, but the Jaws folks decided to take our
approach and re-implement it, but with tons less speech rules, nuance,
stability, performance, and functionality. Apple implemented math support
with even less nuance, but they did manage to at least push it to mobile
devices, which is nice. There's only so much one can do through cajoling,
begging, pleading, and educating, so it is what it is. The Jaws folks now
tend to regret that decision, but that's anecdotal of course. 

So, I can't agree more with you, but there's nothing I know how to do, so I
tell people to install MathPlayer, switch over to NVDA, and at least they
can get their homework done, read their research materials if MathML is
used, and participate in the intellectual discourse of their field.

Hope that helps.

Take care,

Sina

President, Prime Access Consulting, Inc.

Phone: 919-345-3832

https://www.PAC.bz

Twitter: @SinaBahram

Personal Website:  <https://www.sinabahram.com> https://www.sinabahram.com

From: Michael Ausbun <michael.ausbun at wgu.edu> 
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2019 8:57 PM
To: Sina Bahram <sina at sinabahram.com>; 'Blind Math list for those interested
in mathematics' <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Subject: RE: [BlindMath] Accessible math Content

Sina,

               I appreciate your response. I will go ahead and try
mathplayer paired with NVDA. Previously, I tried using JAWS, NVDA, and
Voiceover (OSX and IOS) with varying results when trying to read MathML
content. JAWS did the best, although not great. Content was presented like
old-school alt-text, with the information being read in a continues stream
with no pauses. E.G. twodotoperatortwodotoperatorthreesquared.MathContent
instead as interactable information, much like most general text. Of course,
a user could open the speech history then interact with each component of
the equation, but this still is not ideal.  I'll see if this solves my
problem.

On a related note: I wonder if anyone has considered writing in the
functionality of mathplayer into the screen reader, so a separate entity is
unnecessary? I am particularly thinking of those users who are new to access
technology or technology in general (perhaps newly blind) who would benefit
from a streamlined approach.

Best,

Michael 

From: Sina Bahram <sina at sinabahram.com> 
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2019 4:03 PM
To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics'
<blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Michael Ausbun <michael.ausbun at wgu.edu>
Subject: RE: [BlindMath] Accessible math Content

[EXTERNAL EMAIL] WARNING: Be wise. Be cautious.

If you use MathML, then both Jaws and NVDA have support for aural navigation
in addition to Nemeth output. The NVDA solution relies on MathPlayer, which
in my biased opinion, though unofficially confirmed by dozens of others
including devs at VFO, is a far superior experience when exploring
mathematics. You can then also enable MathJax's experimental SRE
implementation if you want yet another exploration methodology.

Full disclosure, I co-designed MathPlayer's entire exploration approach for
mathematics with the incredible Neil Soiffer.

Hope that helps

President, Prime Access Consulting, Inc.
Phone: 919-345-3832
https://www.PAC.bz
Twitter: @SinaBahram
Personal Website: https://www.sinabahram.com

-----Original Message-----
From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org
<mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org> > On Behalf Of Michael Ausbun
via BlindMath
Sent: Monday, July 15, 2019 4:29 PM
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
<blindmath at nfbnet.org <mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org> >
Cc: Michael Ausbun <michael.ausbun at wgu.edu <mailto:michael.ausbun at wgu.edu> >
Subject: [BlindMath] Accessible math Content

Greetings Federation Family,
At work, I am working on a project right now, to ensure equal
access for *all* people to our math content. We are an entirely online
university. We have fairly consistent results rendering our math content
into accessible electronic braille, but we are looking for a solution for
those users who may not be braille readers or who are not strong braille
users. Although we could provide readers (and have in the past), we would
like to discover a consistent, accessible solution to allow screen readers
to interpret and properly convey content of math equations to our students.
Doing lots of research, I have found a lot of conflicting information, and I
thought who better to ask than my federation family. Any suggestions would
be highly valued!
As I understand it, the issue here seems to consistently be
both user agent related or assistive technology related (inclusive
disjunction, here).
Respectfully,
michael

--
Michael Duane Ausbun, MA
Specialist, Learning Experience,
Universal Design and Accessibility Team
Salt Lake City, Utah
[WGU Learning Experience]

Western Governors University
4001 South 700 East, Suite 700
Salt Lake City, UT 84107
Michael.ausbun at wgu.edu
<mailto:Michael.ausbun at wgu.edu%3cmailto:Michael.ausbun at wgu.edu>
<mailto:Michael.ausbun at wgu.edu>

--
Michael Duane Ausbun, MA
Specialist, Learning Experience,
Universal Design and Accessibility Team
Salt Lake City, Utah
[WGU Learning Experience]

Western Governors University
4001 South 700 East, Suite 700
Salt Lake City, UT 84107
Michael.ausbun at wgu.edu <mailto:Michael.ausbun at wgu.edu> 

[Western Governors University]<wgu.edu>