Blind Bargains

#CSUN14 Audio: Math Equations Are Getting A Whole Lot More Accessible


Access to mathematical equations is getting a whole lot easier, thanks to the efforts of Design Science and their MathPlayer application. One of the leading peple behind this effort is Sina Bahram, President of Prime Access Consulting, who joins us to give a demonstration of accessible math equations using Window-Eyes 8.4 and the MathPlayer plug-in for Microsoft Word. Blind Bargains audio coverage of CSUN 2014 is generously sponsored by the American Foundation for the Blind.

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We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.

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Transcribed by Kayde Rieken

Direct from San Diego, it's BlindBargains.com coverage of CSUN 2014. The biggest names, provocative interviews, and wall-to-wall exhibit hall coverage. Brought to you by the American Foundation for the Blind.

On the American Foundation for the Blind website, you'll find everything you need to know about blindness and visual impairment. Search our national job bank, discover the history of Helen Keller, read our blog on current issues, find professional resources, and even more. Our site is completely accessible. Check it out at www.afb.org.

Now, here's J.J. Meddaugh.

J.J. Meddaugh: We're here at CSUN 2014 with Sina Bahram. He is the president of Prime Access Consulting. And this year, we are here again to talk about math; but this time, in the context of MathPlayer and accessible math equations. Cina, welcome back to Blind Bargains.

Sina Bahram: Thanks for having me.

JM: So why don't you tell us a little bit about accessible math equations?

SB: Sure. So in mathematics, especially if you're — if you're blind and ever encountered math on the web, it's oftentimes an image and really inaccessible. Sometimes, it's spelled out using, you know, those high Unicode characters that screen readers may or may not pick up; and even when it's somewhat accessible — maybe somebody's given a really good description — can't really treat it like math, you know? You can't convert to Nemeth very easily to put on a Braille display. It's just not really easy to use. So what we thought of is, there's two problems to solve in the math accessibility space: there's the creating of math — you know, the authoring of it, writing it down; and that's really important. But before you can even do that, you've got to be able to read the stuff.

JM: Sure.

SB: And you've got to be able to just understand what's there. And so, to that end, there's something called MathML. So you've probably heard of HTML.

JM: Yep.

SB: You know, it's language we use on the web to make webpages. And there's things like XML for — for more extensible documents. Well, MathML is simply a markup language. That's what it stands for, "math markup." MathML.

JM: Yep.

SB: And what it allows you to do is be very specific about what kind of math you're trying to convey. So you don't just say, like, "X caret 3." You know, there's all of these tags that you can put around it. But when you do that, you have a — you have an exact definition of that. So what a lot of people do with that is they take that MathML, they put it on the website, and the math looks really pretty on — on the website. It looks exactly like it should and it's very professional and it's fantastic; but if you're blind, you can't access that.

JM: Right. So visually speaking, there's what?

SB: Visually, it's fine.

JM: Are there plug-ins and things that'll make that all sing?

SB: Yep. Right. And so what we're doing is we're saying, Why don't we take that MathMl, and why don't we — as a result, why don't we read it? And not only read it — I mean, that's — that's one thing. But why can't we explore it and really get into it and interact with it, just like you can with words or characters or lines or sentences in a paragraph? There's — why is math this special thing? We can do so many things with text with a screen reader, and we can use all of these complicated programs; but why is math this elusive target? And it's so important. We were talking about last year, you know —

JM: Right.

SB: STEM education — science, technology, engineering, and math. It's the biggest indicator, you know, success and everything. Let's — let's get this thing solved. So what I'm here to talk about today is this project we've got — we've got going on now with ETS, the testing service folks, and — and Design Science, the folks who make MathPlayer and MATHType, to make mathematics accessible to the blind.

JM: So why don't you show us a little bit of how that might work?

SB: Yeah. So right now, Window-Eyes is one of the partners on the grant, so they have support for this. And hopefully, NVDA will be rolling out some support in the near future.

JM: Okay.

SB: And — you know, we haven't gotten any confirmations, unfortunately, from — from Freedom Scientific, so I think that — you know, it's really important for all AT companies, and for any company, to hear from users, right?

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: Because those are the customers — the — the folks that matter. So if you — if you care about math accessibility and maybe, after this demo, think you'd love something like this in JAWS, I encourage you to contact Freedom Scientific about it. And the more — the more, the merrier. So I want to fire up Window-Eyes, here.

(A chime plays.)

JM: So this is available in the current — is there a version —

SB: Yeah, this is the Window-Eyes I got — yep. I just went — nothing special.

(Window-Eyes begins speaking.)

SB: There we go. It's just a demonstration copy, as you can hear. And this — this MathPlayer plug-in that I've got installed that's going to allow me to read equations in Microsoft Word — we're going to soon make that publicly available because we're looking for beta testers.

JM: For free?

SB: Yeah. To — yep, to just join the beta. So it's the — and it's this complicated thing where it's — it's MathPlayer alpha, but the alpha is in beta.

JM: (Laughs)

SB: Don't — don't ask.

JM: Okay.

SB: So that's — that's what's going on. But I'll give out my contact information and —

JM: Okay.


SB: — you know, encourage especially math-minded users that are really interested in math accessibility to please contact me, and then I can put you in touch with the right folks.

JM: Sure. So you have an equation here.

SB: So we have an equation here.

(Window-Eyes reads the equation, indicating the numerator and denominator of the fraction.)

SB: So — all right. And — so I had it read it twice, all right? Now, here's the thing. Let's zoom in one time on that because —

JM: Okay.

SB: — we don't only get alt text, you know —

JM: I noticed that says it was a shape, too.

SB: Yeah. Right. And so it's a — it's a shape because there are shapes in — in Microsoft Word, and this is just an object.

JM: Any other picture, okay.

SB: And — yeah, and you have the picture of the mathematics on the screen.

JM: Okay.

SB: And if you turn off shape announcement —

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: — it won't say "shape."

JM: Right.

SB: And it'll just read you the math.

JM: Plus, Window-Eyes has the commands to let you kind of jump between objects and —

SB: Exactly.

JM: — you could jump between equations that way.

SB: So you navigate between equations.

JM: Sure.

SB: That's exactly right. Or between, even, sets of equations if somebody put multiple equations in one object.

JM: Okay.

SB: And — so then — I'm going to hit Control+Shift+A.

(The computer makes a clicking sound.)

SB: Okay. We hear that sound. Let's zoom in one level.

(The program zooms in to focus on the numerator.)

SB: Now — and you'll notice it said "Cap-X." I had capitalized the X in this one —

JM: Okay.

SB: Just to show the difference between that and, for example ...

(The program focuses in on the denominator.)

SB: Y-3, which — it doesn't say "Cap-Y" because it's lowercase. So little things like that, it will say. We have to say "Cap-X." You might be wondering, Why didn't it say x in a higher pitch, right?

JM: Right.

SB: And the reason for that is that we don't always get pitch control, the way we're communicating back and forth with the screen reader.

JM: You're — you're not sure which voice you're going to have available.

SB: Right. And so we have to — we have to send word indications of certain things, but it's — you know, I mean, it's a small price to pay. But also, when you're talking about math, even, like, with a friend — a blind friend, a sighted colleague — you'll often say things like, "Cap-sigma" or "Cap-X." Like, that's actually how you would talk about those things. And so if you and I were talking, we would not go, [High-pitched tone] "X [normal tone] plus 3 minus x."

JM: Right.

SB: You know, we don't do that sort of thing. So in the context of math, it makes a little bit of sense.

JM: And of course — like you said — in numerator, in denominator.

SB: In numerator, in denominator. We could even zoom in one more —

(Window-Eyes begins reading the individual parts of the denominator.)

SB: So we can land on the y —

(Window-Eyes reads the minus sign, then the 3.)

SB: You see? And so we're just zooming in. We're —

JM: Okay.

SB: — going to lower and lower levels. But here's what happens. We can autozoom you out. So —

(He moves backwards to the y.)

SB: Here's y, right?

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: Okay. I'm going to hit "left" one more time. Here's what happens.

(It goes back to the numerator level.)

SB: It read the whole numerator, right?

JM: Okay.

SB: It went to the left once, right? And — or previous, I should say. I shouldn't say left because we're actually navigating two-dimensional mathematics right now. It's not just one-dimensional. It's not character-based. And — so it jumped up to the numerator, and it read the whole thing because it had zoomed out automatically for you. So if we want to zoom in and explore a numerator, we can do that. Let's zoom in.

(Window-Eyes begins reading the parts of the numerator individually.)

SB: Cap-X, and then in exponent 4, right? So you can immediately get sort of the sense —

JM: The zoom in, zoom out, little tags — can you control whether that is spoke or not?

SB: You — you can. I don't know how user configurable it's going to be in the alpha because those are in our speech rules.

JM: Right.

SB: But those speech rules are configurable.

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: It's just that whether something's configurable kind of an easy way, or going off and editing an esoteric sort of way — that's going to be all sort of product development later on.

JM: Right. Sure.

SB: You know, we're trying to get the core technology right — right now.

JM: Absolutely.

SB: But that is all configurable. And by the way, the reason that's all configurable is that there are two rules for — or two systems for speaking mathematics these days. There's MathSpeak and ClearSpeak. And they're different ways of — different approaches to speaking mathematics — things like whether you say "times" or not; or whether you say "in numerator" or "sub."

JM: Which one are we using right here?

SB: So right now, we're listening to MathSpeak, but there is — or excuse me. Right now, we're listening to ClearSpeak, but there is also MathSpeak as well, as a rule set that is part of this.

JM: So it's — they both are available.

SB: They're both available, yeah. That's — and that is user configurable. That's in the control panel. There's an accessible control panel widget. I think it says "MathPlayer 32-bit" or "MathPlayer 64-bit" is the name of the link in Control Panel, depending on which one you've got installed. You hit Enter on that, and then you can go through those dialogues and configure the speech rule sets.

JM: As far as the — the functions and types of equations that can be represented with MathML, is everything supported?

SB: More math than I ever took and than some of my folks — some of my friends who have PHDs in math probably ever took. I mean, it's — MathML can pretty much represent a wide variety —

JM: And it's all — and it's all covered in MathPlayer?

SB: And — yeah. I mean, we've found some things here and there, right? So I had an equation the other day. It was, like, a vector equation, so it had r-hat; and we were reading "hat" incorrectly, so we fixed that. So as — I mean, that's actually a really good time, I guess, to say that we're looking for folks to help test this, and — you know, it's not available yet right now —

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: — in terms of beta, but it will be freely available for, basically, download and testing and also feedback; that's the other key part of this. So —

JM: Well, let's talk a little bit about that.

SB: Yeah.

JM: You — you created some equations here for the podcast —

SB: Yeah.

JM: — in Microsoft Word. Where else, though, might people find these equations? Are you looking at partnering with Bookshare or other places?

SB: So — right, right. So that's the thing. So MathML is everywhere. I mean, in EPUB 3, for example, and other standards, MathML is the way you represent math, just like how HTML is the way you represent things like links and lists in those — in those standards. So what's nice about that is that if we have a solution, which we — you know, I claim that this is a really good one — for reading and exploring mathematics and for doing that with MathML, we can use a technology like this to make that math accessible.

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: And to — and to interact with that content. The trick is going to be an engineering problem now. Okay. Well, it works in Word; that's great. Okay, PowerPoint's coming up next. Maybe, you know, I.E., Firefox —

JM: Yep.

SB: — that kind of thing. All right. But now what about, like, in a DAISY player or — or in the cloud so that it can be a third-party service? These are questions that need to be sort of worked on over the next few months.

JM: Multiple devices, multiple platforms —

SB: Multiple platforms, exactly. But the nice thing is, because this is all sort of abstract, in a way — you know, we know how to speak the math.

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: We know how to explore the math. We keep the state of where you are in the equation. How far zoomed in are you? How far zoomed out are you? Because that's all there and it's — it's not tied to Word, it's not tied to I.E. or anything like that, it can go to all those other platforms very easily.

JM: Right. But of course, the I.E. support, I think, would be especially important, right? Because, you know, all the websites that are supporting —

SB: All the websites that might have MathML using for their math. And by the way, for example, you can use things like MathJax on the web, which is a JavaScript library. It takes the MathML code on a webpage, and it makes the math look pretty, right?

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: Well, now, if the screen reader vendors are willing to help out and play ball — which Window-Eyes has said they're doing and NVDA is — has made some really positive signals in that direction — then that would be fantastic because they could grab the MathML out of that, stuff it into this API, and all of a sudden you can make that math on the webpage just natively accessible with the screen reader. Like — just like forms mode, browse mode.

JM: Right.

SB: Just — boom.

JM: Well, you arrow to a table or whatever, arrow inside math or whatever, and you press a key and — yep.

SB: Boom. You're right. Navigate it. You're done with it, hit escape, whatever, get out.

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: And so all — but if you just read it in-line, it'll read the whole equation and then go on, right?

JM: Right.

SB: So it's a — it's just a native solution.

JM: Have you had any conversations with Bookshare or with other providers of accessible textbooks?

SB: Yeah, I've had some preliminary talks with Benetech, not — can't talk too much about it, but they've got some projects underway that are really promising for taking this to the next level. Because, you know, they have a lot of content, right?

JM: Yeah.

SB: I mean, Bookshare just has a great deal of content, and the diagram center, for example, is just really into content accessibility, math accessibility, diagram and spatial data accessibility —

JM: I guess the question for them is when — you know, when books come from the publishers to them — you know, math books — are they coming using MathML or not?

SB: Exactly. That is — that is a fantastic question. I would imagine that the question is, sometimes they are —

JM: Right.

SB: — and sometimes they're not. And maybe more often they're not, depending on format. But that's one of those things where, as these standards — that's why EPUB 3 and things matter. Then they will be more and more in the future because MathML is what folks have started to standardize on to represent the math in those books, in those pieces of content.

JM: Sure. What about Braille support?

SB: Braille support is something that we can support right now, but the screen reader has to cooperate, right? Because —

JM: Right.

SB: — it's our conduit to the Braille display. You know what I mean?

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: But we can send Braille out. So we can translate the stuff into Braille — you know, into Nemeth, for example —

JM: Right.

SB: — and send it out. But the screen reader has to support giving us the ability — you know, giving a callback function, basically.

JM: Sure.

SB: Just saying, "Hey, look."

JM: You know, "The user wants to see this in Braille."

SB: Yeah, yeah. "The user wants to see — okay, here. Push this into Braille display. Push this into Braille display." That sort of thing.

JM: Right. So so far, none of the screen readers have done that yet?

SB: Not yet, no. That's something that I'm hoping that Window-Eyes is going to do; and NVDA obviously has pretty good Braille support so, you know, that's going to be next on the horizon as well.

JM: What else is — looking towards the future, anything else exciting as far as future plans and things you're trying to incorporate?

SB: Well, so — you know how I talked about, you know, authoring versus reading the math?

JM: Right.

SB: So you can read this and you can do all sorts of things. I mean, you can place — put place markers and bread crumbs —

JM: Right.

(Window-Eyes announces that a place marker has been set.)

SB: Yeah, like that.

JM: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

SB: Like, I just put a little place marker right there in the equation. And then I can jump to that place marker.

JM: Okay.

SB: So if you're solving complicated equations, there's a whole — there's a whole list of features we haven't even talked about on this thing.

JM: Right.

SB: There's different cursors, for example.

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: And — just for exploring math in a fine-tuned way or not. But the other thing is, sometimes you have to make the math. You've got to create —

JM: Sure.

SB: You've got to write the math. That wasn't part of this grant, but we wanted to have something in there, just so — just so we could have a little taste, right?

JM: Mm-hmm.

SB: So right now, if any of your listeners are familiar with LaTex, then that is one way that you can author math in — in Word in an accessible way. So let me show that. Here's another equation, by the way.

(Window-Eyes reads out a quadratic equation.)

JM: Oh, yes.

SB: It's giving you, like, a full equation, right?

JM: Yeah.

SB: Like, a quadratic with the equals sign and navigate to either side. But — here, I'm going to move past that. I'm going to write some LaTex right now. I'm going to just — so let's make a fraction, for example.

(WINDOW-Eyes echoes what is typed.)

SB: So first, we put a dollar sign; then we go, "Backslash frac, open brace." And let's just do something simple, like "X plus 3 over ..." How about "Y minus 2." Okay. And then, let's put a dollar sign to close everything out. And then —

JM: You're — yeah, it's a little geeky.

SB: It's a little geeky, right?

JM: For a programmer type, they could — they could do this.

SB: Exactly. It's fine; this is how I write my papers. This is not what you'd expect a regular user to do, but at least this is there. Now we've got to make this ten times easier to use. Well, that's fine; that's an engineering problem.

JM: Sure.

SB: Let's make that happen. I hit Alt+Backslash —

(The computer makes an error chime; Window-Eyes begins reading the equation.)

SB: — and, you know, we get an error message.

JM: Well, there's your typical programmer —

SB: It's a live — live demo.

JM: Yep.

SB: But — and I'm not going to even try to — to fix on air, but —

JM: (Laughs)

SB: Basically — basically, what you would have gotten — and this did, luckily, demo here at CSUN about four or five times live, so that was good. You would have gotten, you know, that — that equation, you know, the fraction with numerator.

JM: Right. So the trick is to figure out — you know, when you have, like, a sixth grader who needs to represent their first equations and writing it.

SB: Yeah, a sixth grader's not going to be writing in LaTex, right?

JM: WELL —

SB: And so that's —

JM: — most of them, right.

JM: (Laughs) Yeah.

SB: Yeah. So that's where you — you're going to want something easier with keystrokes and keyboard commands. And there are some projects that are being worked on — that is — that's working on that as well. And hopefully, if we continue on this grant, or on future, you know, revisions of this grant, we can start working on authoring as well because it's something I'm really passionate about.

JM: Would there be the possibility, too, of perhaps you type in Nemeth or some — or some other code?

SB: Yeah. So you mean Braille input, right?

JM: Yeah.

SB: So you'd do the Braille — so the — the major problem with Braille input right now is, when you do the Nemeth input, you've got to translate that on the fly to the correct thing.

JM: Right.

SB: So like, to MathML, for example, right? And sometimes, there are some edge cases there where you're trying to back-translate — back-translating gets a little tricky sometimes.

JM: Right. Yep.

SB: But yeah, there's nothing preventing us from doing that.

JM: Okay. So obviously, you've talked a lot about beta testing and getting feedback, so —

SB: Yeah. Let me —

JM: — how would people get involved with that process?

SB: Let me give out some stuff, some — some email addresses and such —

JM: Sure.

SB: — and kind of go from there. It's one of those things where it's still early in the process, but — you know, you and I met up at CSUN, so I wanted to give you a taste of this. This is alpha; this isn't even beta.

JM: Right.

SB: But when we go to beta, when we publicly beta this, I — I want people to — especially the math geeks out there or folks that are just even somewhat interested in reading math — to really contribute and make this thing better. So my personal email address is sina@pac.bz, really nice, short domain name. And — so sina@pac.bz is a great way to get ahold of me, just express some interest. I might do — I might reply; I might just forward you along to our — to our list, whatever. You know, that — that's the best way to kind of express some interest in this project. You can hit me up on Twitter. I'm @sinabahram. And on there, we can talk about this, keep the conversation going with others. And then, as folks are starting to use the beta, I'm hoping to use Twitter as sort of an outreach mechanism to say, Okay. You know, so-and-so's having this problem; can I get somebody else to replicate it? And, you know, we can keep it public so that we can really, hopefully, help this thing kind of get better even for people that might not be in the same room or the same area. They can all contribute, you know, and keep that going.

JM: Awesome. Hey, thank you so much. Always enjoy the latest cool stuff that you're showing us here.

SB: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Blind Bargains is your home for the latest assistive technology news and reviews. Visit us at BlindBargains.com, or follow @blindbargains on Twitter for the inside scoop.

This has been another Blind Bargains audio podcast. Visit BlindBargains.com for the latest deals, news, and exclusive content. This podcast may not be retransmitted, sold, or reproduced without the express, written permission of ATGuys. Copyright 2014.


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J.J. Meddaugh is an experienced technology writer and computer enthusiast. He is a graduate of Western Michigan University with a major in telecommunications management and a minor in business. When not writing for Blind Bargains, he enjoys travel, playing the keyboard, and meeting new people.


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