A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math for Online Math Software Sam Dooley, Pearson Susan Osterhaus, TSBVI Corey Fauble, Pearson

1A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Math content is moving online (finally!)  Online math technology always lags behind  Online math is complex, difficult, expensive  Online math presentation, authoring, and interaction each present unique challenges  Online STEM instruction and assessment have become important lines of business

2A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Online math content must be fully accessible Blind students need:  A level playing field for STEM instruction  To read and write online braille math  To interact with sighted instructors and peers  To participate in online activities

3A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Braille math codes must be online ready  Accessible online math still lags behind  Software must be fully online, interactive  Software must be able to support the code Software development costs will pick winners and losers among online braille math codes.

4A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Braille math codes must support online use  Examine two current braille codes for math  Nemeth Braille Code for Math and Science  Unified English Braille Code for Math  Identify features that impede online use  Advocate features that enable online use

5A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Other issues affect accessible online math  Lack of technical support to go online  Speech input/output support for math  Codes for textual content (EBAE, UEB)  Combining text and math content  Spatial arrangements  Tactile graphics

6A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Accessible online math (demo!)  Equation editor for online math entry  Fully accessible math output and input  Sighted user creates math for a braille user  Braille user creates math for a sighted user  Instant interactions with math content

7A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Braille features impact accessible online math  Context  Ambiguity  Indicators  Flexibility  Extensibility  Uniformity

8A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Context  Encoding rules depend on the surroundings  Context-sensitive encodings are expensive  Software testing/support is more complex  User encoding recall and accuracy decrease

9A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Nested exponents

10A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Nested roots

11A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Ambiguity  One braille symbol has more than one use  Each overloaded symbol incurs additional cost  Braille input software becomes more complex  User interpretation accuracy decreases

12A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Upper and lower cell numbers

13A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Indicators  One symbol modifies the meaning of another  Each braille indicator incurs additional cost  Smaller scopes are even more expensive  Special rules apply to each specific indicator  Special rules increase the user’s cognitive load

14A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Symbol, word, and passage indicators

15A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Flexibility  One structure can use multiple encodings  Each additional encoding is more expensive  More choices leads to less reliable software  More choices leads to less interoperability

16A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Spatial arrangements

17A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Extensibility  Existing rules can encode new symbols  Non-standard symbols incur additional cost  Users are unlikely to have encountered them  Content is less likely to be interoperable  Software must be coded for extensibility

18A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Spherical angle

19A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Uniformity  Encoding rules are used everywhere  Each special case rule increases cost  Consistency improves user recall, accuracy  Consistency decreases the cognitive load

Simple numeric fraction General fraction

21A Comparison of Nemeth Braille and UEB Math 25 Mar 2016 Conclusions  Accessible online math software is complex  Limited resources constrain what can be done  Codes that support online use will succeed  Codes that impede online use will be ignored  No braille code is without flaws to be fixed  Adjustments should continue to be made