Design Science Receives National Science Foundation Grant

Design Science Inc, an organization that makes mathematical content accessible to people with vision disabilities, has received recognition from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Other than extending mathematics accessibility to Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF documents, the company intends to add support for Braille and improve its speech generation algorithms.

Word and PDF documents are very popular in science and education. The next step for the company is to create math documents in these formats. “Our aim is to develop a robust, market-ready system,” said Dr. Neil Soiffer, Senior Scientist at Design Science and the grant’s principal investigator.
 
In a recent announcement of the US Department of Education, the necessity of readily accessible mathematics was highlighted. The existing technologies that assist to make textual content accessible to those with visual disabilities can be extended in the case of mathematics also.
 
The grant will elevate Design Science’s position in the field of MathML-based solutions. The company was formerly funded by the NSF for its research in mathematics accessibility tool, MathPlayer, which enables Microsoft Internet Explorer users to display and speak mathematical notations in Web pages. The accessibility features of this tool are based on MathML technology, an XML-based language for representing mathematics that was published as a Recommendation by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1998.
 
MathPlayer enables individuals with visual disabilities to hear mathematical expressions read aloud. Future versions of this tool will simultaneously highlight the terms being read aloud to help individuals with low vision and learning disabilities such as dyslexia. Presently MathPlayer is the only mathematics accessibility solution that seamlessly integrates with leading screen reader software, such as JAWS, Window-Eyes, HAL, Read & Write, and BrowseAloud.
 
Source: Design Science Inc.