A practical guide to accessible math

Math is one of the most common accessibility barriers in digital course materials — and one of the easiest to overlook. Most math-based content is not immediately accessible to screen readers, text-to-speech tools or braille displays the way regular text can be. Legacy formats such as PDFs and LaTeX, as well as math presented as images, create significant barriers for students who use assistive technology.

Harvard’s Assistive Technology Center (ATC) and Digital Accessibility Services (DAS) teams are collaborating to develop easy-to-follow, self-service guidance for accessible STEM content that anyone can use when they need it. This session will highlight that work and give attendees clear next steps for making their own math content more accessible.

This presentation and live demonstration will:

• Explain why math is uniquely challenging from an accessibility standpoint
• Demonstrate what math content looks like through screen readers and other assistive technologies
• Share practical, repeatable workflows for creating and converting accessible math using tools already in use at Harvard, including Canvas, Pandoc and LaTeXML

This session is a presentation and live demonstration rather than a hands-on workshop.

Key topics include:

• Why math is challenging for assistive technology and common issues encountered each semester in STEM courses
• How students experience math with screen readers, text-to-speech tools and braille technologies
• How to create accessible math from the start in Canvas using the built-in equation tools and MathJax, with practical tips for building accessibility into content from the beginning
• How ATC remediates existing STEM content from LaTeX and PDFs, including example workflows using Pandoc and LaTeXML and common pitfalls to avoid
• How ATC and DAS support accessible STEM content across the university, where to find step-by-step guidance and ServiceNow articles, and concrete next steps participants can take in their own courses or support roles