Mathematical figures accessibility CSUN 2014

Bruno Splendiani, Mireia Ribera, Miquel Centelles
Adaptabit Group – University of Barcelona
CSUN Conference 2014

 Introduction
 Our work
 Methodology
 Results
 Proposal
 Conclusions
2“Are figures accessible in mathematics academic journals?” - CSUN 2014

“Are figures accessible in mathematics academic journals?” - CSUN 2014 3
In Science,Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)
academic literature, mathematical formulae, diagrams and other
two-dimensional structures are a critical information source.
Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STEM_Magnet_Academy]

4
Barriers to visually impaired students and students
with learning disabilities in research literature
“Are figures accessible in mathematics academic journals?” - CSUN 2014

5
Mathematics literature include
Sources: [1- 3 ]

Solution for math notations: MATHML
6
Source:
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166218X12002363]

7
Sources: [1- 5 ]
What about graphics?

“If I can’t see the image I read its description”

9
The image is…
it shows…
it represents…..???

 Readers
 Access to the content
 Publishers
 fulfill accessibility regulations
 Comply with social responsibility
 Advantages in article retrieval

 To review publishing practices, policies and
submission guidelines concerning the
accessibility of visual content in a sample of ten
academic journals in mathematics.
 To check the application of the accessibility
policy in one article from each journal.
 To analyze the alternative textual means of
accessing the underlying semantics of figures.

 Where are the text alternatives?
 In the image’s captions.
 In the surrounding/adjacent text.
 In the mentions of the image in main text.
 In the image title.
 In the metadata.

Objectives
 To foster the inclusion of accessibility policies
in the submission workflow of academic
journals
 To show the need for guidelines to
standardize the submission of images in
scientific papers.

14
Accessibility policy?
Submission policy and guidelines for visual content?
Top ten journals in mathematics in JCR
 Journal of the American Mathematical Society
 Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics
 Annals of Mathematics
 Acta Mathematica
 Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society
 Inventiones Mathematicae
 Foundations of Computational Mathematics
 Journal of the European Mathematical Society
 Publications Mathématiques de l'IHÉS
 Fixed PointTheory and Applications

15
One article for each journal in PDF version
Are figures “readable”?
 Image format
 Color contrast and coding
 Label font type and size
 Minimum resolution
 Minimum dimensions

16
What is in image-related text?

 No journal had an accessibility policy
statement.
 Only two journals made a reference to the
inclusion of descriptive captions of figures in
their submission guidelines.

 Visual elements in mathematics papers have
peculiar characteristics and treatment compared
to figures in papers of other research areas, like
Medicine, Biology, Computer Science.
 Preferential use of vector format rather than the
raster format.
 Usually, the figures are considered as part of the text.
 Fonts preferences mismatch with accessibility
requirements.
 NO content semantic descriptors in XMP metadata

Vector images in PDF = content stream in
object
19
No alternative/ functional actual text

Raster images not tagged in PDF
20
No alternative/actual text

Source: Bogomolov et al.

 Two frequent disappointing decisions
concerning the fonts in formulae:
 Usually, the label font size in formulae is lower
than 12 pt.
 Usually, the font family in formulae is the serif
one… since it is recommended by the ISO
International Standard 80000-:2009.

NO content semantic descriptors
in XMP metadata

24
10
2 2 2
5
3
2
4
0
5
2
0
9
8
7
8
0 0 0 0 0
8
7
2
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Accessibility issues evaluated in ten journals and articles
Good practices documented in journal policy
Good practices applied in paper

Good practices documented
in journal policy
Good practices applied in paper
Vector format 10 9
Color alone 2 8
Color Contrast 2 7
Combination of colors 2 8
Minimum resolution 5 0
Minimum dimensions 3 0
Font type sans-serif 2 0
Minimum Font size 4 0
Alt/actual text (PDF) 0 0
Caption 5 8
Mention(s) 2 7
Metadata 0 2

 Lack of consistency between image
submission policies and their application
 The practices do not fulfill basic
recommendations on accessibility
 Images lack alternative descriptions
 Visual information of scientific articles is not
accessible to people with visual disabilities

27
Promote the inclusion of alt text (and other
accessibility issues) in the publishing
workflow
 Recommendations in submission system
 Automatic alt text check
 Automatic image check (contrast, resolution,
font size..)

 Provide solutions for avoiding the loss of
semantic data associated with figures during
the transformation from original LaTex
documents to the final publication PDF
documents.
 Research opportunities:
 About the metadata workflow.
 About the adaptation of Image Processing and
Interchange Standard (IPI)

29
Metadata management
in the publishing workflow
How are metadata and image annotations created
and transmitted from initial submission to article
publication?
Is image metadata in mathematics publications
preserved throughout its lifecycle?

 Lack of common and clearly defined guidelines
addressing accessibility issues related to figures in
highly cited mathematics journals.
 High variability in the application of
recommendations related to graphical features and
textual alternatives to the figures in PDF articles.
 We propose to improve image accessibility in
mathematics by promoting the inclusion of
alternative text in publishers guidelines and
authors practices.

Questions?
centelles@ub.edu
http://www.ub.edu/adaptabit/
adaptabit@ub.edu
31

1. Fedor Nazarov, Dmitry Ryabogin and Artem Zvavitch , An
asymmetric convex body with maximal sections of constant
volume, J. Amer. Math. Soc. 27 (2014), 43-68
2. Grégory Miermont,The Brownian map is the scaling limit of
uniform random plane quadrangulations,Volume 10, issue 2. June
2013
3. Mladen Bestvina , Geometric group theory and 3 manifolds hand
in hand: the fulfillment ofThurston's vision, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.
51 (2014), 53-70
4. Jonathan D. Hauenstein and Charles W.Wampler, Isosingular Sets
and Deflation, Foundations of Computational MathematicsThe
Journal of the Society for the Foundations of Computational
MathematicsVolume 13, Issue 3. June 2013
5. Piotr Mackowiak,The existence of equilibrium in a simple
exchange model, Fixed PointTheory and Applications 2013,
2013:104
32

33
Common set of international guidelines
for image submission
ISO 80000-2:2009
WCAG 2.0

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Start from existing guidelines
on image description

Mathematical figures accessibility CSUN 2014

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