Why should you make PowerPoints Accessible?
Making PowerPoint presentations accessible is important because it ensures everyone fully engages with the content. This includes people with disabilities, different learning preferences, people who cannot see the visual elements, or people using assistive technology.
Tips for making presentations accessible
- Use alternative formats: Provide text transcripts or captions for multimedia.
- Use accessible fonts and colors: Avoid colors that are hard to distinguish, like red and green. Choose a San-Serif font such as Verdana that is larger than 18 point
- Use simple language: Keep text on-screen to a minimum.
- Use meaningful alternative text: Provide descriptions for images, especially functional images that are links.
- Use accessible slide layouts: Consider using prebuilt templates that support accessibility.
- Test accessibility: Use the Accessibility Checker built into PowerPoint to ensure your presentation is accessible to everyone.
- Avoid all capital (uppercase) letters.
- Learn more about How to change the reading order in PowerPoint.
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Remember to add a unique title to each slide: People who use a screen reader skim slide titles to navigate; they can quickly scan through a list of slide titles and go right to the slide they want. People with disabilities or who are using assistive technology use slide titles to clearly identify and understand which slide they are on.
Include ample white space between sentences. - Use bold font to emphasize rather than using excessive italics and underlines.
- Use accessible templates.
How to Run the Accessibility Checker in PowerPoint
- Select "review" button.
- Select "check accessibility" button.
Describe all visual objects with an Alternative Text (Alt Text).
- Explain “why” the image relates to the content. The Alt Text is read aloud by screen reading software.
Below are steps to Add Alternative Text (Alt. Text) to Images that will make your PowerPoint more accessible
- Right click on the image.
- Select "Edit Alt. Text ..."
- Type in what the photo is of. For this example of the logo, you could put "Southern New Hampshire University logo."
- If it is decorative, you can select the box. For this one it could be marked as decorative due to possible no relevance to the Power Point depending on what it is on.
Remember to check the Reading Order of the PowerPoint
Reading order is essential for people with no movement or limited movements in their hands or who use wands, switches, or sticks to access their computer and screenreader users. Screen readers can read the elements of a slide in the order they were added; this may be very different from the order in which things appear visually on screen.
- Select "Reorder Objects"
- Select "Selection Pane..."
For the screen reader to properly read the slide to the user, the reading order must go from bottom to top. In the following example, the screen reader would read the text in picture 13, text placeholder 8, and finally, title 7.
Remember to manually check for Color Contrast Issues
- Avoid using color as the only means of representing information.
- Use sufficient contrast for text and background colors. Review the following articles to learn more about:
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Review the articles listed below for additional support:
- What is Color Contrast?
- Color Contrast Information and Tools
- Avoid Flashing Content
- How to Check Color Contrast with Colour Contrast Analyser (CCA): This free software will require you to download the application to your device.
- How to Create Accessible Content for Color Vision Deficiency
- Use a web-based Color Blind Vision Simulator such as Coblis: Color Blindness Simulator and look at what the content would look like through the eyes of people with different types of color blindness.
Adding Accessible Properties to Your PowerPoint
The following article explains why it is important and how to complete this How to Add Accessibility Properties to PowerPoint (Desktop Mac)
Additional Resources
- Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to people with disabilities - Microsoft Support
- Microsoft PowerPoint Video Accessibility Training - Microsoft Support
- Preparing for an Inclusive Virtual Event or Meeting
- Ensuring An Event is Inclusive and Engaging for All Attendees
- Avoid Flashing Content
- Best Practices: Alternative Text