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Re: Screenreaders and MathML

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From: Giovanni Duarte
Date: Nov 2, 2011 6:45AM

Hi,

Birkir provides some excellent and accurate information about Accessible
Math. I only want to point out a couple things:

. To me Math accessibility has two aspects. The first aspect is the
device or medium access. This means that Math can be accessed from "any"
device, system, or browser. The second component is the "usability". For
example, how can a screen reader read the math in a meaningful way.

. For the first aspect of accessibility, MathJax is a great
solution. It allows you to display MathML in pretty much any browser or
device. I can see MathML equations in an Android, IPad, or any internet
browser (IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc)

. The second aspect is where I have seen only one good solution.
That is the use of MathPlayer. This means that a screen reader user will
need to use Internet Explorer plus MathPlayer so you can make usable.
However, any other user, can take benefit of the nice MathML render from any
other device or browser.

. By the end of the day both MathJax and MathPlayer can work
together and bring the best of both products.



I have implemented MathJax in our online courses so anyone can benefit from
it. For example, a user of screen magnification software can highly benefit
from this implementation using any browser - even their mobile devices. My
point is that we can reach more users implementing a technique such as
MathJax. At the same time I needed to inform screen reader users that to
fully benefit from this technology, they need to use Internet Explorer and
download the free MathPlayer plugin.



I hope this can provide some help. BTW: MathJax is supported by the people
from Design Science so this is good news for those looking to implement this
JavaScript library.



Giovanni