Creating and Delivering Accessible Presentations

Agenda

• Introduction
• Ensuring your Slides are Viewable
• Ensuring your PowerPoint file is Accessible
• Accessible Presentation Techniques
• Accommodations for Presentations

Ensuring Your Slides are Visible

Font Size

By default, in PowerPoint:

• Titles have a size of 44pt
• Subtitles and slide text are 32pt
• In PowerPoint, the font automatically shrinks to fit on the slides; this is a cue that you've written too much!
• Size depends greatly on the room and projector, but below 24pt is generally too small

• There isn't a "perfect" choice for font
• Arial and Verdana are good choices
• Calibri isn't bad, but it is spaced less than others
• Comic Sans and Century Gothic have advantages, too
• Avoid cursive or script fonts

Contrast

• Contrast is often an issue for presentations
• Sometimes things will look great on your screen, but there will be colour and contrast differences caused by projectors and other factors

Font Colour

• Black and white will always be the easiest to read
• When using colour to add interest, restrict it to titles and/or highlights
• Don't convey important information using colour; separate the colour from the message

Concerns with Templates

Some of MS Office's default, built-in styles have questionable contrast or other possible barriers that we need to be aware of.

Ensuring Your PowerPoint File is Accessible

Accessibility of PowerPoint Files

• PowerPoint files are generally not very accessible
• For a screen-reader to work, it needs to select text, and this is difficult when every text box and image is in a separate space that one must click to access
• Some web-based presentation tools, like slides.com, are free and accessible!
• Accessible presentation tools will allow you to select all text on the screen at the same time

Text Direction

• Some screen-readers have trouble with vertical or angled text
• It's also harder to read in general
• This should be avoided

Descriptive Links

• URLs in most modern applications are usually recognized as a hyperlink
• URLs don't usually make good names for links
• Consider editing the link so it has a descriptive name
• Bad names include click here or this
• Avoid using the same name repeatedly
• Some additional description/context is a good idea

Descriptive Link Example

Which of these three links to the same page is best?

1. Visit https://support.office.com/en-IE/article/Style-basics-in-Word-d382f84d-5c38-4444-98a5-9cbb6ede1ba4 for more information about Styles in Word

2. Click here to view information on Styles in Word

3. For more information, see Microsoft Office introduction to Styles in Word

• Avoid

Embedded Videos

• Embedded videos often won't display subtitles
• Often, there are other barriers for students attempting to view embedded videos
• It is usually better to link to a video than to embed it (and ensure that the video on the web has proper subtitles)

Slide Titles

• Some users may navigate your slides by title
• Avoid giving slides the exact same title
• Related slides can be numbered or given titles that show they're related (i.e. "Slide Titles Cont'd")
• This also makes it apparent when the slide has changed during a presentation and makes it easier to follow along

Accessibility Checker

Microsoft has its own tool for checking accessibility:

Accessibility Checker (2)

Accessible Presentation Techniques

Respect the Audience

Even when you know your audience (or class), you can be fully inclusive by recognizing that someone could have:

• become ill (and can't talk or move well)
• forgotten their contact lenses (and can't see)
• attended a loud event (and can't hear)
• had a bad day (and can't concentrate)
• or any number of other factors

Among other considerations, these are all good reasons not to call on unengaged students.

Taking a Break

• Taking a break during a long lecture is often a good idea for many of the same reasons. Learners will work better given the freedom to take a bathroom or coffee break without missing course content.
• During a break, invite questions, perhaps via discussion board, Twitter, or post-its. Allowing indirect questions provides a voice for more reserved people.

What Stops You From Learning?

• On the subject of taking a bathroom break... it is difficult to pay attention or remember effectively when you're stressed or distracted.
• When possible, lecture after the quiz/test, not before.
• If it makes sense, make work due at the start of class.
• Make clear whether you are okay with students eating in class, especially over common meal times.
• For these reasons and others, it is often helpful to be aware of your program's block schedule.

Presentation Concerns

• You can't completely avoid text on slides and you can't completely avoid being redundant with the slides
• Consider students with difficulty understanding auditory information (LD, deaf, hard of hearing, ESL...)

They need to see it!

• Consider students with difficulty understanding written information (LD, blind, low vision, back of the room...)

They need to hear it!

• You must cover all information on the slide, including describing any relevant visuals.

Pause Between Topics

Accommodations for Presentations

Preferential Seating

• Some students have an accommodation for preferred seating.
• This may be due to a disability affecting the student's ability to see, to hear, or to retain attention.
• Be aware of this when group work is planned.
• Though the rooms don't always allow it, do your best to be visible and audible to all students.

Allowing Access to the Slides

• As we said earlier, PowerPoint slides are not very accessible.
• When sharing slides with your audience, consider also (or instead) saving as a Word or PDF document

• The handouts option for Word doesn't solve every problem, but it helps

Presentation Concerns

• Provide a copy of your slides - before the presentation is preferable
• Modified slides are OK, but complete slides are more inclusive

Consider:

If you were doing readings in class; would you expect the students to bring their books?

Discussion

• Is it okay to post inaccessible PowerPoint slides?
• Can we expect our audience to know the information from these slides?
• Can we expect our audience to know material from slides we haven't posted?

Using a Microphone

• In some cases, students have accommodations that require the instructor to wear a microphone or another device.
• This is most commonly because they have difficulty hearing or paying attention.
• If you're wearing a microphone, it's usually not hard to wire it into a room's sound system.
• Often, it's also not hard to connect to your computer if you want to record the audio of your whole lecture.

FM System Microphones

• FM Systems are just microphones specifically designed to work with a hearing aid or speaker.
• Though it's possible, generally a student using these isn't recording the lecture.
• Demo hardware is available at the ASC if you want to see or try one!

Recorded Lectures

There's some controversy here. Let's discuss.