Designing and Delivering Accessible Presentations and Workshops

A DOCX version of the Guide to Designing and Delivering Accessible Presentations and Workshops is available.

Introduction

The University of Waterloo is committed to achieving barrier-free accessibility for persons with disabilities who are visiting, studying, or working at Waterloo. We’ve adapted the following guidelines from the Council of Ontario Universities’ Educator’s Accessibility Toolkit to help you prepare and deliver a conference session that is more accessible to conference participants. Creating accessible presentations can increase access and understanding for all.

Delivering an accessible presentation

• Face participants when you speak and make sure you’re not in shadow. If you are backlit, it might be difficult for participants to see your face.
• We strongly encourage all Conference presenters to use a microphone in their sessions. There is always a risk that your voice will trail off, or that participants at the back of the room cannot hear, even in smaller rooms.
• Repeat questions or comments to the entire group (and into the microphone if you are using one) so everyone can hear.
• Pause frequently to allow participants to keep up with notetaking and to absorb information.
• Try not to move around too much when speaking. This can be distracting and can make it difficult for participants who are trying to lip-read, and/or limit the effectiveness of a microphone if you’re using one.
• Provide definitions for new concepts or vocabulary. Avoid using acronyms and abbreviations.
• Verbally explain any visual aids, such as charts, graphs, images, or tables. Describe what they show. For example, if you expect participants to read a PowerPoint slide, read it out loud so everyone can hear.
• Give participants options for participating in activities and discussions; for instance, let participants opt out of group work.
• Make sure all delivery formats are accessible (for example, if you show a video, ensure that it displays captions).

What makes presentation materials accessible?

Accessible PowerPoint slides or handouts are those that can be followed and understood by any participant—for example, they present information in a logical order and present information in ways that are easy to read.

Creating an accessible PowerPoint presentation

For your ease, we have prepared an accessible PowerPoint presentation for use at this conference.

• Ensure that the type is large enough to read easily (minimum 18-point type). If your presentation will be viewed via projector, the type should be larger than on printed handouts; 30-point type is recommended.
• Make sure there is a high contrast between the background and the text. If your presentation will be viewed via projector, the contrast often needs to be more pronounced than on printed material. If you use colours, use ones that are highly contrasting.
• Make sure the content (e.g., charts, graphs, etc.) can be interpreted in greyscale, in case someone prints it in black and white.
• Use the slide layout templates provided by PowerPoint. They have been designed to be accessible.
• Use titles on each slide, so the flow of the presentation is easy to navigate.
• Use simple slide transitions or avoid animation-like effects altogether. Complex transitions, such as checkerboards, can be distracting during presentations; they may also cause problems with screen readers or other assistive technologies if someone views the presentation electronically.
• Use simple language.
• Don’t overcrowd slides with text. Three to seven bullet points per slide is a good rule of thumb.
• Use the notes pane to insert your lecture notes.
• If you embed video, make sure it is captioned and that the player controls — start, pause and stop — are accessible.
• If you embed audio, make sure a transcript is available.
• If your slides contain animations, make sure they are brief and do not distract from the most important content on the page.

• If you are sharing your slides, use alt text to explain pictures, images, graphics, graphs, tables, and flowcharts, so that a screen reader can access them. You can read more about how to create alt text at the end of this resource.

Creating accessible handouts

• Text should be at least 12-point type; fonts should be simple and sans serif (for example, Arial, Comic Sans MS, Georgia, Courier New, Tahoma, Trebuchet MS, or Verdana).
• Maintain a high contrast; black text on a white background is easiest to read.
• If you use colours, select those that are highly contrasting, and don’t rely on colour alone to convey meaning.
• Make sure the content can still be interpreted in greyscale if someone prints the document in black and white.
• Use a bold font to show emphasis. Italics or upper-case letters is not recommended.

Additional considerations for creating accessible electronic handouts

• Design your document by using Word’s “Styles” menu, rather than by applying formats to the text directly. For example, if you enlarge a font and make it bold, a screen reader will not see it as a heading; but if you apply a heading style to the text, the screen reader will recognize it.
• Use “Styles” to create a logical hierarchy that makes your document easy to navigate and that screen readers can follow: “Title,” “Heading 1,” “Heading 2,” etc.
• Avoid using the “Enter” or “Return” key to create space between paragraphs. To change the spacing, select the paragraphs and change their spacing-before and spacing-after settings. Newer editions of Word add a blank line after each paragraph, and insert space before headings by default, so this may not be required.
• Avoid using Word text boxes. Screen readers cannot see inside them.
• Do not type URLs into your Word document. Instead, create meaningful link text. You can read more about meaningful link text at the end of this resource.
• Use alt text to explain pictures, images, graphics, graphs, tables, and flowcharts, so that a screen reader can access them. You can read more about how to create alt text at the end of this resource.

What is meaningful hyperlink text?

Typing out URLs into a presentation or document forces screen reader users to listen to entire URLs, which are often meaningless, difficult to follow, and long. Creating meaningful link text removes this barrier. Also, screen readers list links in alphabetical order for users to hear all at once, which is an important way for users to scan and navigate a document. For this reason, link text should make sense out of context. Screen readers also say “link” before reading the link text for each link, so it is important to not create links that say “click here” or “more information.” This blog post on avoiding “click here” in link text goes into further detail. In this resource, we’ve tried to create meaningful link text throughout. To recap:

• Do not type out URLs.
• Create link text that makes sense out of context.
• Do not include language like “read more” or “click here” in your link text.

What is alternative text?

Alternative text (or alt text) describes an image, graph, or figure so that the user’s assistive technology may convey what information is being provided. It appears when you move your cursor over a picture or object. In situations where the reader cannot see the image, alt text ensures that no information is lost. For lecture presentations to be accessible, alt text must be assigned to all photos, images, multimedia, graphs, charts, text boxes, ClipArt, SmartArt, AutoShapes, etc.

The method for adding alt text varies from version to version of PowerPoint and Word, but typically you will start by right-clicking on the image and then making a selection from the menu that appears (for instance, “Format Picture” or “Size and Position”). Earlier versions of PowerPoint for Mac don’t have an option for adding alt text to images.

How do you know if your alt text adequately conveys the needed information? Effective alt text:

• Communicates the purpose of the image accurately and succinctly.
• Contains a short description of the image that is important to the user’s understanding of the information conveyed and a longer description for complex or detailed diagrams and images.
• Does not repeat the text of an adjacent caption. Screen readers read both the caption and the alt text, so avoid having the same details in both.
• Does not contain the words “Image of” at the start of the alt text. Screen readers tell the user that there is an image and then read the alt text.
• Does indicate “Screen shot of…” if it is an image taken from a computer screen.
• Does indicate “Photo of…” if it is a photo.
• Requires no text if an image is purely decorative. Simply provide two quotation marks (“ ”) as the alt text.
• Uses punctuation for full sentences.

Further resources

This resource was adapted from three sections of the Council of Ontario Universities’ (2017) Educator’s Accessibility Toolkit: Creating accessible lectures, Using PowerPoint, and Using Word documents and/or PDFs.

Please feel free to reach out to conference organizers: contact us via email or email Annik Bilodeau.