RE: MathML - and action 1494.

Hi Greg,

Thanks for this detailed update. Things do indeed sound promising, even 
amongst all of the "ifs" I heard :-)

Cheers!

JF


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg Kraus [mailto:gdkraus@ncsu.edu]
> Sent: Monday, August 11, 2014 6:39 AM
> To: John Foliot
> Cc: James Craig; Richard Schwerdtfeger; cooper@w3.org;
> janina@rednote.net; PF; Sean J Keegan
> Subject: Re: MathML - and action 1494.
>
> I actually just got back from a conference where I got to see some of
> the technologies in development to make math accessible, and I was very
> impressed.
>
> Currently, Google seems to have recommitted itself to MathML support in
> ChromeVox, and it has decent support. I did see a demo of math being
> read by a screen reader in iOS, but it was unclear to me in the demo if
> that was pure Safari+VoiceOver or if there was another app in there. My
> quick test with VoiceOver did not read the MathML. It is true that
> accessible math is at a dead end in IE right now because of a lack of
> support for plugins like MathPlayer.
>
> The future was what was really exciting. DesignScience has a
> development version of MathPlayer that can work with any screen reader,
> as long as the screen reader calls the MathPlayer API. NVDA already has
> this functionality incorporated into a development branch.
> The end result was that NVDA in FF was able to fully interact with
> MathML. Additionally, math stored in PDFs was also able to work with
> NVDA. That's something that has never been a possibility before, to my
> knowledge.
>
> The other new major feature in the development version of MathPlayer is
> the ability to allow screen readers the ability to interact with the
> math expressions in much more meaningful ways than has ever been
> possible before. Screen readers users can zoom in and out on different
> parts of the expression to concentrate on different parts. They can
> leave placeholders in different parts of the equation to jump from
> section to section. They also have more options for navigating through
> an equation - reading by individual term, reading by logical groupings
> (e.g. use the plus and minus signs as sectional markers to read only
> one term at a time).
>
> This new MathPlayer is not limited to screen readers. It can work with
> literacy software too. So the current state of math accessibility is
> not great. If Design Science ultimately makes their new version
> available, and if NVDA (or VoiceOver - nudge, nudge) incorporates the
> functionality into their production release, math accessibility will
> take a huge leap forward.
>
> Greg
> --
> Greg Kraus
> University IT Accessibility Coordinator
> NC State University
> 919.513.4087
> gdkraus@ncsu.edu
> http://go.ncsu.edu/itaccess
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 10, 2014 at 9:00 PM, John Foliot <john@foliot.ca> wrote:
> > James Craig wrote:
> >>
> >> Furthermore, much has changed in the last half a decade since this
> >> text was written. The native implementations of accessible MathML
> are
> >> vastly superior to plain text approximations of Math equations, even
> >> allowing spacial exploration of equations, and Nemeth Braille
> output.
> >> All modern but unsupported browsers can be polyfilled to include
> >> support with libraries like MathJax.
> >
> > James, I wish I could share your optimism. As recently as May of this
> > year, the reports I received from my contacts in the academic world
> > suggest that the support you are hoping for is far less robust than
> > you may think. I urge you to read all of the comments appended to my
> HTML5/a11y-TF note:
> > http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-
> a11y/2014May/0090.html
> >
> > I further recall that a number of EDU representatives at CSUN this
> > spring were lamenting the fact that support appeared to be going
> > backward, not forward; with Google backing out of Chrome support, and
> > non-existent support in IE11 they were quiet upset as I recall.
> > Frankly today, it appears that to provide real math support at the
> EDU
> > level, institutions are resorting to recreating the content in MS
> Word or Daisy:
> >
> >         "To make HMTL-based math accessible requires the use of
> > MathPlayer from DesignScience. MathPlayer requires IE 9 or less and
> > will not work IE 11. They say it partially works with IE 10. Without
> > MathPlayer the other two options for consuming accessible math are
> > either converting to a DAISY format or MS Word." (G. Kraus 5/7/14)
> >
> >>
> >> Mainstream and accessibility support for MathML is only getting
> >> better, and I think it's fine to acknowledge that progress in a
> >> yet-to-be-written non-normative note.
> >
> > I have no issue with noting that MathML is a future-forward
> technique,
> > but non-normatively we should also acknowledge that current support
> > is, at best, weak. As such, the same non-normative document should
> > also include other, alternative means of achieving accessibility
> > support, which I believe is what Rich was suggesting, and is
> certainly what I am suggesting.
> >
> > JF
> >
> >

Received on Monday, 11 August 2014 14:39:52 UTC