Hello everyone,
I am an Assistive Technology Instructor working with a client who is blind and uses VoiceOver on a MacBook Pro. We are trying to determine whether anyone has successfully used Pearson MyLab Math with VoiceOver and, if so, what workflow or settings were required.
The course is accessed through Canvas and launches into Pearson MyLab Math. We are encountering several accessibility barriers:
VoiceOver can navigate to answer fields.
VoiceOver can locate portions of the page and some controls.
Mathematical equations and problem statements are often not read correctly or cannot be reliably interacted with.
Using VO+Shift+Down Arrow to interact with the equation area does not consistently expose the math content.
The student can sometimes reach the answer box but cannot efficiently access or review the actual question.
Navigation often requires moving through numerous links and page elements before reaching course content.
We have contacted Pearson Support and received general VoiceOver documentation, accessibility mode instructions, and an accessibility contact email. However, we have not yet received guidance specific to using VoiceOver with MyLab Math.
I am hoping to hear from anyone who has:
Successfully completed a Pearson MyLab Math course using VoiceOver on macOS.
Found a preferred browser (Safari, Chrome, Firefox, etc.).
Used specific VoiceOver commands or settings that improved math accessibility.
Worked with MathML, accessibility mode, or other settings that improved equation access.
Identified workarounds for accessing problem statements and equations.
Any advice, resources, demonstrations, or training materials would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your help.
Comments
Engage the school
Hi,
It's worth noting that my experience with the platform is a good bit ago and was with JAWS/Windows, but there were some bits that are relevant from my time taking courses using it and when I worked in accessibility at a community college that used the platform.
One thing to be aware of is that, even with accessibility mode on, not all questions in the platform are accessible. When I was a student, the college had to make accessible versions of the courses I took that were sure to only pull from the accessible questions in their extensive question bank. I'd recommend engaging with the school's disability services office, faculty, and course tech folks to get the ball rolling. If y'all can ensure all the questions are the accessible ones, you should be able to navigate them with pretty standard web commands.
Full disclosure: I haven't worked for the community college for 4.5 years and would hope Pearson has gotten better since I'd departed that job as an accessibility specialist for greener pastures, but I really can't say I'm all that surprised they didn't. Also, if Pearson had had the platform accessible a decade ago I'd probably be working in a law office as a paralegal instead of as an accessibility lead for a bank...
My own experience
I had a microeconomics course and it was using one of pearson platform I believe it was this one.
I mostly did it on windows with NVDA.
The best feature IMO is the graphic descriptions which are very very underrated and are so useful that even when through their accessibility thing my college got the original pdf to adapt the graphs in braille I virtually didn't use them as the description was more than enough.
For the platform itself, it is mostly accessible. Voiceover on mac indeed has more focus issues sometimes than other screen reader, but as long as I kept using safari or chrome but only with the voiceover navigation commands and not only the arrow keys I was fine. For the equations, sometimes we have to interact multiple times down to navigate by smaller part. I believe think/hope pearson uses mathjax which can allow to copy the equation as latex, very useful. Though this menu, only on macos, has some accessibility problem as VO often fails to announce the exact element focused (copy as latex equation or something like that) so using the command to announce selection, vo f6 (from memory here, you may wanna confirm in the user guide) can help with that, and a bit of muscle memory.
But this was in 2023 so things may have changed but back then it was surprisingly good for my needs.