Neil Soiffer - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Neil Soiffer

Proceedings of the 8th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility

ETS Research Report Series, 2016

document use and software licensing rules apply. This specification defines the Mathematical Mark... more document use and software licensing rules apply. This specification defines the Mathematical Markup Language, or MathML. MathML is an XML ap-plication for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text. This specification of the markup language MathML is intended primarily for a readership consisting of those who will be developing or implementing renderers or editors using it, or software that will communicate using MathML as a protocol for input or output. It is not a User’s Guide but rather a reference document. MathML can be used to encode both mathematical notation and mathematical content. About thirty-eight of the MathML tags describe abstract notational structures, while another about one hundred and seventy provide a way of unambiguously specifying the intended meaning of an expression. ...

Math accessibility work dates back to the 1990s, but these efforts have accelerated rapidly in th... more Math accessibility work dates back to the 1990s, but these efforts have accelerated rapidly in the last 5 years. It has moved from research into widely used systems that include JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TextHELP. The current systems convert MathML into speech and braille, and allow the users to navigate expressions for better comprehension. Further work on better semantic speech that uses page content or other clues to determine the meaning of the notation and how it should be spoken is ongoing. Work on accessible typed input, braille input, speech input, and accessible ways of doing math (not just reading it) is also underway. Beyond equations, the research on audio and tactile methods of presenting plots and charts has also been performed, and is being incorporated into commonly used software.

ACM SIGSAM Bulletin, 1997

Haya Shida, Subscribe (Full Service), Register (Limited Service, Free), Login. Search: The ACM Di... more Haya Shida, Subscribe (Full Service), Register (Limited Service, Free), Login. Search: The ACM Digital Library The Guide. ...

MathPlayer is a free plug-in to Internet Explorer that visually and aurally renders MathML in web... more MathPlayer is a free plug-in to Internet Explorer that visually and aurally renders MathML in web. MathPlayer was first released many years ago, but starting with Version 2.0 and enhanced in Version 2.1, it incorporates accessibility features.

Proceedings of the Internet of Accessible Things, 2018

WYSIWYG mathematical editors have existed for several decades. Recent editors have mostly been we... more WYSIWYG mathematical editors have existed for several decades. Recent editors have mostly been web-based. These editors often provide buttons or palettes containing hundreds of symbols used in mathematics. People who use screen readers and switch devices are restricted to semi-linear access of the buttons and must wade through a large number of buttons to find the right symbol to insert if the symbol is not present on the keyboard. This paper presents data gleaned from textbooks that shows that if the subject area is known, the number of buttons needed for special symbols is small so usability can be greatly improved.

Several systems have been developed that allow mathematical expressions to be spoken and navigate... more Several systems have been developed that allow mathematical expressions to be spoken and navigated. This paper describes studies involving the latest revision of the most widely used system: MathPlayer 4. This version includes features to allow navigation of mathematical expressions. Students with blindness or low vision used NVDA + MathPlayer to read Microsoft Word documents with math problems in them. The results were compared with the same students reading similar documents using their favorite modality (braille or large print). The results showed that speech augmented with navigation resulted in similar comprehension rates compared to when students used their preferred modality. This is an important finding because electronic documents are often available in situations where braille or large print documents are not.

To improve accessibility of math expressions for students with visual impairments, our project em... more To improve accessibility of math expressions for students with visual impairments, our project employs MathML and the products MathType and MathPlayer to provide an improved style of synthetic speech called ClearSpeak. This paper describes the project’s background, the essential features of ClearSpeak, and results of the first feedback study with students that show for the tested notations, ClearSpeak was superior to the two pre-existing speech styles in MathPlayer (SimpleSpeak and MathSpeak).

Human–Computer Interaction Series, 2019

ETS Research Report Series, 2017

ETS Research Report Series, 2016

Electronic Journal of Mathematics and Technology, Oct 1, 2007

Proceedings of the 8th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility

ETS Research Report Series, 2016

document use and software licensing rules apply. This specification defines the Mathematical Mark... more document use and software licensing rules apply. This specification defines the Mathematical Markup Language, or MathML. MathML is an XML ap-plication for describing mathematical notation and capturing both its structure and content. The goal of MathML is to enable mathematics to be served, received, and processed on the World Wide Web, just as HTML has enabled this functionality for text. This specification of the markup language MathML is intended primarily for a readership consisting of those who will be developing or implementing renderers or editors using it, or software that will communicate using MathML as a protocol for input or output. It is not a User’s Guide but rather a reference document. MathML can be used to encode both mathematical notation and mathematical content. About thirty-eight of the MathML tags describe abstract notational structures, while another about one hundred and seventy provide a way of unambiguously specifying the intended meaning of an expression. ...

Math accessibility work dates back to the 1990s, but these efforts have accelerated rapidly in th... more Math accessibility work dates back to the 1990s, but these efforts have accelerated rapidly in the last 5 years. It has moved from research into widely used systems that include JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, and TextHELP. The current systems convert MathML into speech and braille, and allow the users to navigate expressions for better comprehension. Further work on better semantic speech that uses page content or other clues to determine the meaning of the notation and how it should be spoken is ongoing. Work on accessible typed input, braille input, speech input, and accessible ways of doing math (not just reading it) is also underway. Beyond equations, the research on audio and tactile methods of presenting plots and charts has also been performed, and is being incorporated into commonly used software.

ACM SIGSAM Bulletin, 1997

Haya Shida, Subscribe (Full Service), Register (Limited Service, Free), Login. Search: The ACM Di... more Haya Shida, Subscribe (Full Service), Register (Limited Service, Free), Login. Search: The ACM Digital Library The Guide. ...

MathPlayer is a free plug-in to Internet Explorer that visually and aurally renders MathML in web... more MathPlayer is a free plug-in to Internet Explorer that visually and aurally renders MathML in web. MathPlayer was first released many years ago, but starting with Version 2.0 and enhanced in Version 2.1, it incorporates accessibility features.

Proceedings of the Internet of Accessible Things, 2018

WYSIWYG mathematical editors have existed for several decades. Recent editors have mostly been we... more WYSIWYG mathematical editors have existed for several decades. Recent editors have mostly been web-based. These editors often provide buttons or palettes containing hundreds of symbols used in mathematics. People who use screen readers and switch devices are restricted to semi-linear access of the buttons and must wade through a large number of buttons to find the right symbol to insert if the symbol is not present on the keyboard. This paper presents data gleaned from textbooks that shows that if the subject area is known, the number of buttons needed for special symbols is small so usability can be greatly improved.

Several systems have been developed that allow mathematical expressions to be spoken and navigate... more Several systems have been developed that allow mathematical expressions to be spoken and navigated. This paper describes studies involving the latest revision of the most widely used system: MathPlayer 4. This version includes features to allow navigation of mathematical expressions. Students with blindness or low vision used NVDA + MathPlayer to read Microsoft Word documents with math problems in them. The results were compared with the same students reading similar documents using their favorite modality (braille or large print). The results showed that speech augmented with navigation resulted in similar comprehension rates compared to when students used their preferred modality. This is an important finding because electronic documents are often available in situations where braille or large print documents are not.

To improve accessibility of math expressions for students with visual impairments, our project em... more To improve accessibility of math expressions for students with visual impairments, our project employs MathML and the products MathType and MathPlayer to provide an improved style of synthetic speech called ClearSpeak. This paper describes the project’s background, the essential features of ClearSpeak, and results of the first feedback study with students that show for the tested notations, ClearSpeak was superior to the two pre-existing speech styles in MathPlayer (SimpleSpeak and MathSpeak).

Human–Computer Interaction Series, 2019

ETS Research Report Series, 2017

ETS Research Report Series, 2016

Electronic Journal of Mathematics and Technology, Oct 1, 2007