Making Math Accessible

MathType 6.7 improves braille production

MathType 6.7 was just released. It includes lots of new features such as Office 2010 support and increased interoperability with other sites and apps. A nice accessibility improvement came about because of our close collaboration with ViewPlus: it is even easier in v6.7 to generate braille math output using ViewPlus's Tiger Software Suite.

Design Science is committed to making math accessible. For more information on accessible math, see our accessibility solution pages.

MathML in HTML5: Internet Explorer 9 is Broken

I have some good news and some bad news. First, the good news is that the new HTML5 standards initiative includes support for MathML and has been embraced by all browser vendors. This should reduce the barriers to producing web content with accessible, searchable, and interoperable mathematics.

Now the bad news. Unfortunately, MathML support in the next version of Internet Explorer 9 appears to be broken, based on our testing of Microsoft's latest Platform Preview. Read the whole story in MathML in HTML5: Internet Explorer 9 is Broken. It only requires a small fix but Microsoft likely will not give it much priority unless the STEM, Education, and Accessibility communities make it clear how important MathML support is for them. Our hope is that you will help us spread the word about this problem and make Microsoft understand the need to make MathML work once again. If you agree, let them know by any and all means at your disposal.

I have some good news and some bad news. First, the good news is that the new HTML5 standards initiative includes support for MathML and has been embraced by all browser vendors. This should reduce the barriers to producing web content with accessible, searchable, and interoperable mathematics.

Now the bad news. Unfortunately, MathML support in the next version of Internet Explorer 9 appears to be broken, based on our testing of Microsoft's latest Platform Preview. Read the whole story in MathML in HTML5: Internet Explorer 9 is Broken. It only requires a small fix but Microsoft likely will not give it much priority unless the STEM, Education, and Accessibility communities make it clear how important MathML support is for them. Our hope is that you will help us spread the word about this problem and make Microsoft understand the need to make MathML work once again. If you agree, let them know by any and all means at your disposal.

Accessible elementary math with MathPlayer and MathML 3

In a previous post, I broke the news that MathML 3 is going to be a proposed recommendation.  I also bragged about MathPlayer having 97% coverage for MathML 3 features. Support for the visual display of elementary math went into what will be MathPlayer 3 over nine months ago (see my earlier post about MathML 3).  As many people know, MathML is the way to make math accessible.  Now that MathML 3 supports elementary math, that too can be made accessible. Here's a demonstration of the next version of MathPlayer displaying and speaking elementary math:

We're still working on refinements to what is spoken.  If you have suggestions for how to improve the speech for either example, please let us know!

2010Q1: MathPlayer usage; back to school, back to using MathPlayer

A few months ago, I posted to this blog about how MathPlayer usage is really taking off this school year.  We have some new numbers to report.  Not surprisingly, MathPlayer's usage with Assistive Technology (AT) is closely tied to the school year; when the winter holidays rolled around, the number of equations spoken by MathPlayer really dropped off.  But when the school year revved up again, so did MathPlayer usage as is shown in the plot below (spring break is in March, so that month is down a bit, just as happened in previous years):

With almost 700,000 expressions spoken since school started back up after the winter holidays, it's pretty clear that MathPlayer is becoming an integral part of many schools' accessibility solution for their students.

Were hard at work making MathPlayer an even better solution for more students.  We'd like to hear from you about what you'd like see added to MathPlayer in the future.  Let us know by posting a comment to this blog or sending email to support@dessci.com. As always, you can find out more about math accessibility on our accessibility solutions page.  And you can check out whether your AT works with MathPlayer on our AT math support page -- if your AT is not listed there, contact your vendor and let them know you'll buy an upgrade if their product works with MathPlayer. Vendors listen to their customers (and their customers' dollars).

Design Science shows off leading solutions for math accessibility at CSUN 2010

Next week in San Diego, the largest accessibility conference in the world takes place:  CSUN 2010.  At CSUN, you'll be able to see, learn, and share the latest techniques to deal with students and others who have a wide range of disabilities. We'll have a booth there to show MathPlayer, MathType, and MathDaisy and how they handle the task of turning mathematical expressions into something that is accessible and works with other assistive technology.

If you'll be at CSUN or live near San Diego (access to the exhibit hall is free), please stop by and see how Design Science's products are making math accessible to a wide range of people. The Design Science booth is #411. On Saturday at 10:40am, I'll be giving a joint talk with Gaeir Dietrich and John Gardner about Accommodating Mathematics in Higher Ed. We will show both exciting high tech solutions for math accessibility, along with some low tech ones that are very useful.  More details and a link to make a seat reservation can be found on this web page. If you can't make it to CSUN, visit our accessibility solutions web page for information on math accessibility.

To see other conferences where we'll be exhibiting and speaking, refer to the Events page on our website.