1. The Path to Accessible Math
Neil Soiffer
Design Science, Inc
University of Guelph
May 27, 2009
Copyright © 2009, Design Science Inc., All rights reserved.

2. Outline The Good The Bad – Limitations The Ugly – Making it Work
Accessible Math
MathML & Standards
Authoring Tools
Renders
DAISY
The Bad – Limitations
The Ugly – Making it Work
The Discussion…

3. Accessible Math What Where Why
Expressions, Graphs, Figures, Animations, Manipulatives
Where
Textbooks, homework, articles, work
Web, MS Word, PDF, ebooks
Why
Every day, every student takes math
It is one of the 3 "R"s
It’s the Law…
Every school day, in ever classroom, children are taught math

4. Accessible Math Requirements
Blindness
Audio description
Navigation
Braille math translation
Low Vision
Font size and color control
Print-related Learning Disabilities
Synchronization of highlighting with speech
Needs are not really different from those related to normal text
Images don’t meet these needs, even if they have alt text

5. Math as Images What’s Wrong with Images MathML to the rescue…
Math can and is spoken many different ways
Alt text is static
Pronunciation: “a plus b”
No magnification, navigation, braille, or sync highlighting
MathML to the rescue…

6. MathML Example Presentation Content
<math> <mroot> <mi> x </mi> <mn> 3 </mn> </mroot> </math>
<math> <apply> <root/> <degree> <cn> 3 </cn> <degree/> <ci> x </ci> </apply> </math>

7. MathML In Standards MathML 2 (2003); MathML 3 (2010?) DocBook
DocBook
DAISY (Digital Talking Books)
NIMAS: K-12 Textbooks
eBooks: ePub (OEBPS)
PDF (?!)
PDF/UA support for Math
HTML5 (2012???)
Presentation
Linebreaking control
Support for elementary math
mglyph supports image inclusion
Content
Completely rewritten chapter
Clearer mapping to OpenMath
Semantics grounded in OpenMath

8. Authoring MathType —Word, iWork, … WebEQ — Java-based MathML editor
MathFlow—ArborText, XMetaL, XMAX
Open Office
Scientific Notebook
TeX→MathML —TtM, TeX4ht,LaTeXML
Mathematica, Maple, MathCAD

9. Design Science Authoring Tools
MathType
WYSIWYG
TeX editing
Works with
Word
PowerPoint
iWork ’09
Wikipedia…

10. WebEQ & MathFlow Editor
Single Equations
WebEQ
Content MML
XML Editors
MathFlow
Arbortext
XMetaL
SDK – suite of tools for custom apps
WebEq includes equation editor
SDK good for one off things (hook up editor to connexions interface)

11. MathType & MathPage MathPage for Word MathPlayer Word-> XHTML
Display
Interaction
Accessible

12. Works in Popular Browsers
IE+MathPlayer
Firefox

13. MathPlayer Accessibility Features
Display
Matches font size and color
Allows magnification of expressions
Synchronized highlighting
Speech
Supports multiple speech styles
Supports multiple languages
Supports prosody (pauses, rate, …)
Braille
Supports multiple MathML-to-braille translators
DotsPlus (emboss to Tiger printers)

14. Demo Time Word+MathType MathPage to get XHTML+MathPlayer
MathPlayer Accessibility

15. MathPlayer Multilingual Speech
Translations
Usable:
Chinese, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish
In Process
Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, Korean
What it takes to do a translation
~150 words + 74 descriptions
3,000 Unicode characters (~500 needed)
Need French
Fame, Glory, and Fortune – only two out of three

16. DAISY DAISY is a highly accessible format Contains a MathML extension
Collection of files
Audio, Text, or a combination
Contains a MathML extension
Used by Other Standards
NIMAS is a subset of DAISY
Part of ePub (ebooks)

17. Word & “Save as DAISY” Version 2: Full DAISY book Demo…
Uses MathType
Uses MathDaisy
Demo…
Edit (WYSWYG, TeX)
SAD
Also Open Office Add-in

18. The Bad: DAISY Only two visual players support Math
gh Player
Dolphin EasyReader v4
(+)Works with all Audio only players
Not much technical material in DAISY
Multiple files complicates delivery
NIMAS should cause lots more material to be added
Pearson HTML books

19. The Bad: MathML on the Web
Not Universally Supported
Doesn’t work in Safari, Chrome
Doesn’t work in IE w/o MathPlayer
Accessible only w/MathPlayer or FireVox
Fonts
JavaScript and/or Greasemonkey-like solutions coming
FireVox: “screen reader for Firefox”

20. The Ugly: MathML on the Web
Serving XHTML
application/xhtml+xml
Use .xht as suffix
dessci.com/en/products/mathplayer/author/creatingsites.htm
UMM – PHP server solution
MathML-aware browser → MathML
Otherwise → Generate & Send Image
GTKMathView (free) or MathFlow SDK
umm.sourceforge.net

21. Summary Authoring: MathType, MathFlow, … Works with DAISY tools
Display:
MathPlayer, Firefox,
gh Player, EasyReader
Flexible Speech & Braille Generation
MathML used in lots of places
Project SMART: ‘MathML is good’