Literature Reviews

Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.

• Towards Making Mathematics a First Class Citizen in General Screen Readers

  Volker Sorge, Charles Chen, T. V. Raman, David Tseng (2014) — Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents a comprehensive approach to integrating mathematical speech translation into ChromeVox, Google's open-source screen reader for the Chrome browser and Chrome OS. The authors address the fundamental challenge that mathematical notat…

  • screen readers
  • mathematics accessibility
  • MathML
  • ChromeVox
  • text-to-speech
  • STEM accessibility
  • semantic enrichment
  • interactive exploration
  • speech rules

• Contextual Exploration of Mathematical Formulae on the Web for People with Visual Disabilities in Brazil with an Open-Source Screen Reader

  Hérlon Manollo Cândido Guedes, Paula C. F. Cardoso, William Massami Watanabe, André Pimenta Freire (2022) — Proceedings of the 21st Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems (IHC)

  This paper presents the implementation and evaluation of Access8Math-NavMatBR, an NVDA screen reader add-on for reading and exploring mathematical formulae on the web in Brazilian Portuguese. The add-on implements contextual exploration — a strategy …

  • mathematical accessibility
  • screen readers
  • NVDA
  • MathML
  • visual disability
  • Portuguese language
  • contextual exploration
  • STEM accessibility

• Browser-Independent Accessible Math

  Neil Soiffer (2015) — Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper describes the re-architecture of MathPlayer (version 4) from Design Science, transforming it from an Internet Explorer-only plugin into a standalone library that any assistive technology can use to make mathematical notation accessible in …

  • MathML
  • STEM accessibility
  • screen readers
  • speech generation
  • braille
  • navigation
  • assistive technology
  • mathematics accessibility

• Towards Universal Rendering in MathJax

  Davide Cervone, Peter Krautzberger, Volker Sorge (2016) — Proceedings of the 13th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents the MathJax Consortium's effort to transform MathJax from a purely visual mathematics rendering library into a universal rendering solution that supports readers with visual, print, and motor impairments. The authors describe how …

  • STEM accessibility
  • mathematics accessibility
  • MathML
  • screen readers
  • universal design
  • assistive technology
  • web accessibility

• Online Nemeth Braille Input/Output Using Content MathML

  Samuel S. Dooley, Susan Osterhaus, Dan Brown, Edgar Lozano, Su H. Park (2016) — Proceedings of the 13th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This extended abstract presents a software system that enables automatic two-way conversion between printed mathematical notation and Nemeth Braille, using Content MathML as an intermediary representation. Access to mathematical content remains one o…

  • braille
  • mathematics accessibility
  • STEM accessibility
  • visual impairment
  • MathML
  • equation editors
  • Nemeth Braille

• ChattyBooks and ChattyBook Service

  Masakazu Suzuki, Katsuhito Yamaguchi (2017) — Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This demonstration paper presents ChattyBooks, a Windows application that converts STEM content in DAISY/accessible EPUB3 format into audio-embedded HTML5 with JavaScript, enabling playback in any web browser on any platform without requiring special…

  • STEM accessibility
  • DAISY
  • EPUB
  • MathML
  • mathematics accessibility
  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • dyslexia
  • text-to-speech
  • OCR
  • accessible publishing
  • e-textbooks
  • HTML5
  • JavaScript
  • PDF accessibility
  • SVG
  • Japan
  • education accessibility

• Improving Usability of Math Editors

  Neil Soiffer (2018) — Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2018)

  This short paper presents an empirical analysis of mathematical symbol usage across US grade 6-12 textbooks to demonstrate that context-aware math editors could dramatically reduce the number of buttons needed for symbol entry, significantly improvin…

  • mathematics accessibility
  • STEM accessibility
  • MathML
  • equation editors
  • screen readers
  • switch access
  • universal design
  • keyboard accessibility
  • visual impairment

• Adaptable Accessibility Features for Mathematics on the Web

  Davide Cervone, Volker Sorge (2019) — Proceedings of the 16th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents the accessibility features in MathJax version 3, the widely-used JavaScript library for rendering mathematics on the web. The fundamental challenge is that standard mathematical markup formats (LaTeX, ASCIIMath, presentation MathM…

  • mathematics accessibility
  • MathJax
  • STEM accessibility
  • screen reader
  • Braille
  • speech output
  • dyslexia
  • low vision
  • personalization
  • web accessibility
  • MathML
  • semantic enrichment