Sight is a very powerful sense. The combination of its information capacity and control means that we can cope with large amounts of visual information. This is a fact that graphical user interface designers exploit frequently. It is also a factor in the low technology 'interface' to mathematics represented by notations such as algebra. This presents a problem for blind people who want to do mathematics; there is no simple but powerful non-visual alternative to printed algebra.
MATHS is an EU-funded project which is addressing this problem through the development of a multi-media workstation. A major challenge is to provide an interface to mathematical material which is as powerful as the conventional visual one - but should be as easy to use.
In this talk I will illustrate how large amounts of information will be presented in non-visual forms (speech, non-speech sounds and braille) and describe the design of the (multi-modal) command languages which will control interaction with those forms.
Please contact either Steve Brewster (stephen@dcs.gla.ac.uk) of Alistair (alistair@minster.york.ac.uk).