Accessible Math

A lightweight project exploring tools, workflows, and best practices for creating accessible mathematics for the web and assistive technologies.

Overview

Accessible Math is a survey-style project that demonstrates how mathematical content can be authored and delivered in a way that works for screen readers, braille displays, and other assistive technologies.

It focuses on the intersection of common math formats (like LaTeX and MathML) and modern web technologies to make math more inclusive.

Why This Matters

Mathematical notation is inherently visual, which makes it difficult to interpret using assistive tools. Accessibility requires preserving not just how math looks, but its underlying structure and meaning so it can be:

• Spoken aloud by screen readers
• Navigated interactively
• Converted to braille or other formats

Key Topics Covered

This project includes documentation and examples around:

• Math markup languages (LaTeX, MathML)
• Web rendering tools (e.g., MathJax, DoenetML)
• Conversion workflows between formats
• Accessible Fonts and Color Palettes for content authoring.

Future Expansion

I plan to slowly increase content to also include

• Screen reader compatibility
• Alt text strategies for equations
• Accessible PDFs and e-books
• Speech engines and braille output

The included documentation walks through a complete workflow for producing accessible math content on the web.

Sample Workflow

A typical accessible math workflow demonstrated in this project:

1. Author math and surrounding content in a markup language (e.g., LaTeX, Markdown).
2. Embed math or other manipulatives into an HTML document.
3. Render using a web engine like MathJax, MathML.
4. Ensure semantic structure for assistive technologies.

This hybrid approach balances usability for authors with accessibility for readers.

Project Structure

.
├── accessible_math_documentation_page.html   # Main documentation page
└── README.md                                # Project overview

Getting Started

To get the project locally:

git clone https://github.com/DoctorHaitch/accessible-math.git

Technologies Used

• HTML / CSS
• LaTeX & MathML concepts
• Python and Pandoc

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! You can help by:

• Adding new tools or workflows
• Improving documentation
• Expanding accessibility examples
• Increasing tools discusses such as MathJax/MathQuill for rendering and inputting math

License

This project is open-source and available under the repository’s license.