Making Math Accessible

MathPlayer 2.2 Released

MathPlayer is by far and away the most used MathML renderer around -- in the 27 months since MathPlayer 2.1 was released, 615 million expressions on 29 million pages have been rendered by MathPlayer! I'm happy to say that we've only had a few bug reports since 2.1 was released, some of which were fixed with intervening bug fix releases. We've fixed many of the remaining ones with this release of MathPlayer 2.2. We've also taken some big steps in 2.2 to improve our font support. When the STIX fonts are finally released in a month or two, MathPlayer 2.2 will be able to make use of them.  Even without them, our improved font support makes expressions look much better, as you can see in the screen shots below:

      
  MathPlayer 2.1 vs. MathPlayer 2.2

One thing that hasn't changed with MathPlayer 2.2 is its price -- it's still free. You can update your version of MathPlayer by visiting our MathPlayer downloads page.

Math is accessible! MathPlayer closing in on 3 million equations spoken

MathPlayer 2.1 was released in September of 2007 and included the ability to work with screen readers and other AT to speak math expression. Its use has grown each year, with a huge jump in the number of expressions spoken in the last few months (the start of the school year) as you can see below:

Counting the usage from 2007, almost 3 million expressions have been spoken by MathPlayer since it was released!  That's a lot of math being spoken to people who otherwise would not have been able to access the content. If you or your students have been waiting for math accessibility to catch on, wait no longer.

We've seen increased interest from vendors in connecting up with MathPlayer, but not all vendors fully support MathPlayer.  If your AT software is not listed in our AT math support page or if the functionality you want (eg, Braille or synchronized highlighting) is not supported by the AT you use, contact your vendor and let them know you'll buy an upgrade if they add the support.  Vendors listen to their customers. The more often they hear a feature request, the higher priority it becomes for them to add it to their product, so make sure you let them know that math accessibility is important for you.

Design Science showcases accessible math solutions at ATIA 2010

Next week in Orlando, about 1,200 people looking for and working on accessibility solutions will come together at ATIA 2010 Orlando. Despite being in Orlando, ATIA is no Mickey Mouse conference -- it is the second biggest accessibility conference in the US next to CSUN.  At ATIA, 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 ATIA or live near Orlando (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 #220.  If you can't make it to Orlando, 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.

Mobile math accessibility stays at home for now

Android is Google's mobile operating system designed to run on smart phones.  Google announced that Android 1.6 adds accessibility features designed to make Android apps more widely usable by blind and low-vision users. It includes a screen reader and text-to-speech engine. The announcement was made by T.V. Raman, a Research Scientist at Google.  His PhD thesis pioneered work on math accessibility, so there is hope that a future version of Android will support accessible math.  But for now, you'll need to stick to using MathPlayer or one of the DAISY-based solutions on your computer.

Google's new accessibility effort...where's the math?

We've been seeing Google in the news a lot lately. There has been a new challenge to the original Google books settlement and an upcoming hearing is about to take place. Accessibility has always been an important aspect of Google books so it is not surprising to see Google stepping up their overall focus on accessibility just prior to the hearing.

On Google's official blog, they recently announced, A new home for accessibility at Google, where they are collecting all of their accessibility projects into one place. At www.google.com/accessibility you can follow the latest accessibility updates from their blogs, find resources from their help center, participate in a discussion group, or send them your feedback and feature requests. They even provide a feedback form where you can suggest accessibility improvements to their products and services.

Google is making millions of books electronically available, but so far they haven't made the math in them accessible. This could be a huge source of accessible material, but they need to hear from you that you care about accessible math. Now's the time to let them know!