A Tablet-Compatible Web-Interface for Mathematical Collaboration

Mathematical novices – including students in introductory mathematics and statistics service courses – increasingly need to engage in online mathematical collaboration. Using currently-available interfaces for their mobile and touch-enabled devices, however, this group faces difficulties, for those interfaces are text-based and not directly suitable for mathematical communication and collaboration.

To address the deficiency of digital input methods and interfaces for mathematics, we introduce a cross-platform synchronous communication interface for mathematical collaboration. The interface is designed to be intuitive for multiple user groups ranging from novices to experts. We demonstrate that it is possible to create a Web-based communication interface that simultaneously incorporates TeX-, palette- and pen-based input methods, and that is compatible with both touch-enabled tablet and traditional keyboard-mouse user interface principles. The design principles we introduce may be valuable for the design of other mathematical user interfaces on touch-enabled devices, such as with Computer Algebra System interaction.