[BlindMath] JAWS appears to have broken electronic math accessibility

[Brian Richwine]

Hi,

Does anyone have any insight into what Freedom Scientific is doing in
developing MathML support in JAWS?

It used to be that we could create accessible HTML math content using
MathJax and have it reliably spoken accurately and unambiguously by
screen-reading software. However, JAWS and its apparently flawed MathML
support have made accessible electronic math unreliable and thus unusable.

The default MathJax settings add visually hidden MathML into the page for
AT that can read it (not the speech text that MathJax can provide). So, now
that JAWS “speaks” MathML JAWS users end up getting the speech text that
JAWS generates instead of what MathJax generates. Unfortunately, it appears
that the speech text for MathML generated by JAWS is very flawed and is
incapable of accurately and unambiguously speaking even basic algebraic
constructions.

The following link contains pairs of simple distinct MathML equations as
examples of basic math that JAWS does not read unambiguously (sighted users
can view it in Firefox to see the MathML rendered):
https://brichwin.pages.iu.edu/tests/jaws_Reading_MathML_ambiguously-2021-06-07.html
I have included the JAWS speech history and the MathSpeak Grammar verbose
speech text generated by MathJax for each example. You will notice that
JAWS fails to read basic mathematical relationships distinctly
(unambiguously) whereas MathJax does generate unambiguous and accurate
speech text.

We have filed several issues on the Freedom Scientific / Vispero Standards
Support github:

·         JAWS is not reading MathML in a clear, unambiguous manner:
https://github.com/FreedomScientific/VFO-standards-support/issues/539

·         JAWS No Longer Announcing the Plus Operator when reading MathML
with Verbosity of Punctuation=None:
https://github.com/FreedomScientific/VFO-standards-support/issues/538

·         MathML equations at beginning of list items are not read
correctly:
https://github.com/FreedomScientific/VFO-standards-support/issues/503

I am concerned because:

·         Non-visual users will not know that JAWS is incorrectly speaking
mathematics.

·         People believe putting MathJax, KaTeX, or straight MathML on an
HTML page makes the mathematics accessible.

o   Increasingly electronic mathematics content is being created and relied
upon. Especially in the education arena.  Students will be disadvantaged.

o   I am beginning to hear people blaming MathJax for the JAWS failings.

·         JAWS appears to render its own flavor of speech text vs. using an
established mature and common grammar (Mathspeak, Clearspeak, etc.). If
this is the case, the different speech rendering could confuse listeners
and add unnecessary cognitive burden as a barrier to comprehension and
learning.

·         I cannot find any JAWS settings to disable or otherwise configure
the JAWS MathML support. Typical configuration options would include
selecting a speech grammar, the grammar’s verbosity level, explicivity,
semantic interpretation, etc.

Does anyone know how to disable the JAWS MathML support? It would be great
if we could turn it off until they make it reliable. Can we get Freedom
Scientific / Vispero to treat MathSupport as a beta feature that is off by
default until it is robust enough not to disadvantage non-visual users?

Very interested to hear the thoughts of others!

   Brian