Building a Programmable Architecture for Non-Visual Navigation of Mathematics: using rules for guiding presentation and switching between modalities Iyad Abu Doush and Enrico Pontelli Department of Computer Science New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA idoush, epontell @cs.nmsu.edu Abstract. This paper presents a new implementation framework for exploring different non-visual modalities of presentation and navigation of mathematical content. The objective is to create a framework to facilitate the investigation of different presentation modalities, and to sustain the development of solutions that could fit a broad range of visual disabilities. The increased flexibility and the ability to customize the presentation scheme have the potential to provide a better fit for the needs of the user and enhance accessibility of complex mathematical content. The proposed approach relies on two principles. The first principle is a separation of concerns: instead of freezing the modality of presentation in the navigation system, we introduce the notion of rendering rule. The second feature of the proposed navigation system is the ability to switch on demand between interactive navigation and prosody-based presentation. This work is implemented as an extension to the Firefox web browser. New functionalities for reading MathML contents in a web page are added to the open source screen reader FireVox. Keywords: Rule-based Systems, Math Accessibility, Prosody, Navigation. 1 Introduction The study of mathematics is crucial in the preparation of students to enter careers in science, technology, engineering and other disciplines, such as the social and behavioral sciences. For many sighted students, math education poses a serious roadblock in entering technical disciplines. The advent of the Internet has significantly enhanced accessibility of technical content, by making millions of documents available on-line and effectively breaking down a number of cultural and socio-economical barriers (e.g. reaching out to rural and under-represented regions). Unfortunately, this move has further deepened the divide between individuals with visually disabilities and those without. For the visually impaired students, the roadblock is now even higher [1]. Mathematical content represents a particular challenge for non-visual access, in most of its aspects – e.g., formulas, graphs, mathematical symbols, and abbreviated function names. Traditional communication channels employed by individuals with