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!