Neil Soiffer

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Accessible Math: Best Practices After 25 Years of Research and Development

Development and Initial Evaluation of the ClearSpeak Style for Automated Speaking of Algebra

by Neil Soiffer and night stitcher

ETS Research Report Series, 2016

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Editors: David Carlisle (NAG) Patrick Ion (Mathematical Reviews, American Mathematical Society)

document use and software licensing rules apply. This specification defines the Mathematical Mark... more document use and software licensing rules apply. This specification defines the Mathematical Markup Language, or MathML. MathML is an XML ap-plication for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text. This specification of the markup language MathML is intended primarily for a readership consisting of those who will be developing or implementing renderers or editors using it, or software that will communicate using MathML as a protocol for input or output. It is not a User’s Guide but rather a reference document. MathML can be used to encode both mathematical notation and mathematical content. About thirty-eight of the MathML tags describe abstract notational structures, while another about one hundred and seventy provide a way of unambiguously specifying the intended meaning of an expression. ...

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Mathematics and Statistics

Math accessibility work dates back to the 1990s, but these efforts have accelerated rapidly in th... more Math accessibility work dates back to the 1990s, but these efforts have accelerated rapidly in the last 5 years. It has moved from research into widely used systems that include JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TextHELP. The current systems convert MathML into speech and braille, and allow the users to navigate expressions for better comprehension. Further work on better semantic speech that uses page content or other clues to determine the meaning of the notation and how it should be spoken is ongoing. Work on accessible typed input, braille input, speech input, and accessible ways of doing math (not just reading it) is also underway. Beyond equations, the research on audio and tactile methods of presenting plots and charts has also been performed, and is being incorporated into commonly used software.

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Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0

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Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) version 2.0 . W3C …

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MathML

ACM SIGSAM Bulletin, 1997

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Mathematical typesetting in

Issac, 1995

Signature based polymorphism for C++

Haya Shida, Subscribe (Full Service), Register (Limited Service, Free), Login. Search: The ACM Di... more

Math Accessibility and MathPlayer

MathPlayer is a free plug-in to Internet Explorer that visually and aurally renders MathML in web... more

Improving Usability of Math Editors

Proceedings of the Internet of Accessible Things, 2018

WYSIWYG mathematical editors have existed for several decades. Recent editors have mostly been we... more WYSIWYG mathematical editors have existed for several decades. Recent editors have mostly been web-based. These editors often provide buttons or palettes containing hundreds of symbols used in mathematics. People who use screen readers and switch devices are restricted to semi-linear access of the buttons and must wade through a large number of buttons to find the right symbol to insert if the symbol is not present on the keyboard. This paper presents data gleaned from textbooks that shows that if the subject area is known, the number of buttons needed for special symbols is small so usability can be greatly improved.

A Study of Speech Versus Braille and Large Print of Mathematical Expressions

Several systems have been developed that allow mathematical expressions to be spoken and navigate... more Several systems have been developed that allow mathematical expressions to be spoken and navigated. This paper describes studies involving the latest revision of the most widely used system: MathPlayer 4. This version includes features to allow navigation of mathematical expressions. Students with blindness or low vision used NVDA + MathPlayer to read Microsoft Word documents with math problems in them. The results were compared with the same students reading similar documents using their favorite modality (braille or large print). The results showed that speech augmented with navigation resulted in similar comprehension rates compared to when students used their preferred modality. This is an important finding because electronic documents are often available in situations where braille or large print documents are not.

Navigable, Customizable TTS for Algebra

To improve accessibility of math expressions for students with visual impairments, our project em... more To improve accessibility of math expressions for students with visual impairments, our project employs MathML and the products MathType and MathPlayer to provide an improved style of synthetic speech called ClearSpeak. This paper describes the project’s background, the essential features of ClearSpeak, and results of the first feedback study with students that show for the tested notations, ClearSpeak was superior to the two pre-existing speech styles in MathPlayer (SimpleSpeak and MathSpeak).

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Mathematics and Statistics

Human–Computer Interaction Series, 2019

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Expanding Audio Access to Mathematics Expressions by Students With Visual Impairments via MathML

ETS Research Report Series, 2017

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Development and Initial Evaluation of the ClearSpeak Style for Automated Speaking of Algebra

ETS Research Report Series, 2016

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Method and apparatus for identifying common subexpressions within an expression

MathPlayer: fully accessible web-based Math.(Report)

Electronic Journal of Mathematics and Technology, Oct 1, 2007

A perplexed user's guide to andante

The design of a user interface for computer algebra systems

This thesis discusses the design and implementation of natural user interfaces for Computer Algeb... more This thesis discusses the design and implementation of natural user interfaces for Computer Algebra Systems. Such an interface must not only display expressions generated by the Computer Algebra Systems. Such an interface must not only display expressions generated by the Computer Algebra System in standard mathematical notation, but also must allow easy manipulation and entry of expressions in that notation. The user interface should also assist in the understanding of large expressions that are generated by Computer Algebra Systems and should be able to accommodate new notational forms. Building a good user interface requires many tradeoffs. As such, there may be no "best" solution for any individual subtask. This thesis discusses many of the tradeoffs involved and develops algorithms for displaying, entering, and selecting from expressions. Two new algorithms for incremental parsing of input are presented. Either algorithm can be coupled with the incremental reformatting and screen update algorithm developed in this thesis to produce an interface capable of correctly updating and displaying changes to relatively large expressions in real-time. Moreover, algorithms that exploit locality for the selection of subexpressions are also given. These selection algorithms are also capable of providing real-time feedback as to what is being selected. Because Computer Algebra Systems generate large expressions, efficiency in both time and space are important. Data is presented that shows that using directed acyclic graphs as the fundamental underlying data structure instead of trees significantly decreases time and space usage. The ability to display large expressions efficiently must be coupled with the ability to manipulate them into understandable forms. This thesis discusses three such techniques: elision, renaming of subexpressions, and line breaking. Two new algorithms are given for incrementally reformatting expressions in the presence of line breaks. This thesis introduces the idea of translations. Translations convert between the form used by a Computer Algebra System and the mathematical notation displayed on the screen. Translations increase the portability of the interface and allow it to communicate with different Computer Algebra Systems during a single session. Translations can be grouped together to form notation libraries which can be used to eliminate some of the ambiguity inherent in mathematical notation.