[BlindMath] Questions about Nemeth and UEB

[Traci W]

Nemeth will always be my love!  It makes sense - I find UEBmath code boring
and trying to be too literal (by shape) and it falls flat and it takes up a
whole lot more space!  Nemeth forever!  :)

Yes, I'm biased!
Traci Wilkerson

On Mon, Apr 10, 2023 at 6:59 PM Neil Soiffer via BlindMath <
blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> A comment, a shameless plug, and a request for feedback...
>
> Comment: Both JAWS and VoiceOver/Safari only support Nemeth from MathML at
> the moment.
>
> Shameless plug: If you want UEB output from MathML, you need to use
> NVDA+MathCAT.
>
> Comment + shameless plug: If you would like to compare Nemeth and UEB, you
> can do so by looking at the MathCATDemo page
> <https://nsoiffer.github.io/MathCATDemo/>. That page is meant to show what
> accessible math can be like. It is NOT meant for people who need to read
> math -- use NVDA+MathCAT on your web page or Word document for doing actual
> reading. The demo page is fully accessible with the braille text area
> marked as a region so it shouldn't be too painful in a screen reader to
> jump between input and braille. The input is pretty flexible -- it takes
> ASCIIMath <http://asciimath.org/>, TeX, and MathML as input. You can turn
> off the speech if it is annoying (and it will save me a few tenths of a
> penny also). Besides Nemeth's use of drop numbers, the most obvious
> difference between Nemeth and UEB you'll see is that UEB is longer,
> sometimes considerably so.
>
> Request for Feedback: if you find a bug in the braille output (either
> Nemeth or UEB), PLEASE let me know. The quality of braille people accept
> from screen readers is shockingly low. I am striving to make MathCAT an
> exception -- tests I have done seem to bear that out. If you are a UEB
> reader, then you know there are grade 1 symbol, word, and passage
> indicators. Both BANA and ICEB have vague guidelines on when to use which
> for math... and they contradict in a few cases. I'd like to improve
> MathCAT's heuristics for that, so if you feel MathCAT should have chosen a
> different one from what it did, please send me the input and an explanation
> of why you think the different indicator makes sense in this case. Bonus
> points for trying to come up with a general rule.
>
> Finally, if you have suggestions for options to control UEB output, let me
> know. I am NOT a braille reader, so some things I find surprising in
> braille may seem very sensible to someone who reads braille. For example,
> "sin x" is " ⠎⠔⠀⠰⠭" but "2sin x" is " ⠼⠃⠎⠊⠝⠀⠰⠭" -- the contracted "in" in
> the first expression is now spelled out because the '2' introduces grade
> one mode. To me, that difference makes it harder to quickly recognize
> "sin", and hence patterns in the output containing "sin". Maybe these
> differences are second nature to someone who knows UEB well and it doesn't
> get in the way of recognizing patterns. A previous poster recommended using
> uncontracted braille. If that is something you'd find useful, please send
> me email (I don't think the mailing list needs to know everyone's thoughts)
> and if several people think that would be useful, I'll add an option to
> MathCAT to force grade1. Other suggestions for improvements to MathCAT are
> also welcome.
>
> Neil Soiffer
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