Achieving accessibility in mathematics and other scientific fields

w i r i s. c o m What is accessibility?

w i r i s. c o m Types of impairments Learning or communicating disabilities dyslexia, autism, etc Visual impairment Complete or partial, and color blindness Hearing impairment Complete or partial Motor or dexterity impairment e.g. paralysis

w i r i s. c o m Whom does it affect? in the context of a Learning Management System such as … Content creatorTeacherStudent(Administrator)

w i r i s. c o m When does accessibility play a role ? Content creation Content interpretation

w i r i s. c o m Accessible formulas verbalised

w i r i s. c o m Types of verbalisation 2 x+1 Grammatical two to the power of x plus one end exponent two to the power of x end exponent plus one Prosodic two to the power of [pause] x plus one two to the power of x [pause] plus one

w i r i s. c o m Limits of verbalisation ProsCons Grammaticalunambiguousmore complex Prosodicsimpleambiguous

w i r i s. c o m The state of the art “Currently there is a complete mismatch between mainstream software for mathematics and existing screen readers when it comes to multimodal presentations of formulae. In most cases formulae are printed on the screen using graphical glyphs. Hence, learning environments are basically unusable for mathematics by people with disabilities such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and any visual impairment.” Mika Seppälä, Florida State University

w i r i s. c o m The plugin approach screen reader plug- in MathML formula The plug-in transforms the MathML into a textual description ready for verbalisation.

w i r i s. c o m dependance on external elements and technologies incompatibilities on different devices and OS convivial with CSS and text formatting The formula adapts to user parametrisation of screen The plugin approach : weaknesses and strengths

w i r i s. c o m The image approach screen reader altern ative text image The alternative text is automatically generated at the moment of formula creation.

w i r i s. c o m The image approach The formula is stored as an image. The image contains a standard tag “alternative text” with a textual description. In this example: “F open parentheses x close parentheses equal integral subscript a superscript b f open parentheses x close parentheses d x”

w i r i s. c o m little conviviality with CSS and different text styles by enlargement of the formula, it loses quality due to extrapolation independence of plugins and screen reader produces a robust system transversally deployable in different devices and Operating Systems The image approach : weaknesses and strengths

w i r i s. c o m Accessibility for content creators? Content creator TeacherStudent Tools can also support the content creation process by differently able professionals

w i r i s. c o m Accessibility for content creators?

w i r i s. c o m Thanks for your attention twitter.com/carles_wiris facebook.com/wirismath