Abstract
Blind people generally access written information linearly – through Braille or speech/audio. Math can be written in linear form, e.g. LaTeX, MathML, computer programming languages, or word descriptions. These forms are too verbose to be practical for reading any but the simplest math equations. They are even worse for authoring or "doing pencil and paper math". Braille is more useful, but relatively few blind people are fluent in any of the many special Braille math codes, none of which is robust enough for back-translation to be useful for authoring math. The authors of this paper have developed a very compact notation, which could be the basis of a new math Braille font, but which is useful today for reading / writing using computers with all common speech screen readers. Translators to/from MathML have been written and integrated with Microsoft Word / MathType. Preliminary usability data will be reported.
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References
Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 3.0, http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML3/
MathJax: beautiful math in all browsers, http://mathjax.com/
LaTex – a document preparation system, http://www.latex-project.org/
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Braille Translation Software from Duxbury Systems, http://www.duxburysystems.com
MathType and MathPlayer are applications from Design Science, Inc., http://www.dessci.com
Liblouis, http://www.liblouis.org/
Tiger Software Suite is a set of Braille applications bundled with ViewPlus embossers, http://www.viewplus.com/products/software/braille-translator/
The Infty Research Group, http://www.inftyproject.org/
The ChattyInfty application by the Infty Research Group, http://www.sciaccess.net/en/ChattyInfty/index.html
The Science Access Project, Department of Physics. Oregon State University, http://dots.physics.orst.edu
LAMBDA Linear Access to Mathematic for Braille Device and Audio-synthesis, http://lambdaproject.org/default.asp?sec=1&langid=14
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© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Gardner, J., Christensen, C. (2012). More Accessible Math. In: Miesenberger, K., Karshmer, A., Penaz, P., Zagler, W. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7382. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31522-0_18
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31522-0_18
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-31521-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-31522-0
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