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Course Accessibility Checklist: Accessible PowerPoints

Accessibility and PowerPoint

General Considerations

According to WebAIM, an organization widely known as expert in online accessibility, PowerPoint should be the last choice for creating material to present online.  While PowerPoint is very popular, and effective, as a tool to enhance in person/ classroom presentations, creating a totally accessible presentation using this tool can take a great deal of work.

Consider this: PowerPoint was originally designed, and intended, for in-person presentations. Slides with content designed to make a "Point" or gain the viewers attention are presented while the speaker provides additional information, explanations, anecdotes, or stories. PowerPoint should enhance the presentation, not be the presentation.  PowerPoint experts recommend that all the content of any presentation should not be on the slide because that is what the speaker/ presenter is for. 

Think about how you use PowerPoint in the classroom.  You probably don't have all the information you intend to deliver to the class on the slides.   Instead, you use the slides as starting points for questions, discussions, further information that you give the students.   If you post that same PowerPoint presentation online, students who only see the online version miss much of what you and other students discussed during the lecture.  

Another point:  If you are putting all your information on PowerPoint slides, why use PowerPoint at all?  You could just deliver the content through a document or create it directly in Blackboard.  This is much easier for all students to access.  

In light of the information above, the best way to use PowerPoint online is to create your interesting slides along with a script of what you would say if you used the PowerPoint presentation to deliver a lecture in class.   Then use Camtasia to create a video of the presentation and post it to the College video server.  When you embed it in Blackboard for your online students add a transcript of the script you used to record.   This will provide total accessibility to the information and a much better experience for all students.   

 

Best Practices with PowerPoint

When creating PowerPoint presentations it is important to follow all guidelines for creating accessible word documents, pdf documents, and Blackboard and online content, particularly those related to fonts, color contrast, alt text, and captioning/transcripts as discussed in those respective sections of this checklist.  

If you are creating a presentation for the classroom, be sure the font is large enough for students at the front and the back of the room to read the text or contents of a chart. 

As with documents, websites, and Blackboard content,  color contrast is critical in Powerpoint. Select a theme with adequate contrast between the foreground and background.  There are many free tools for testing the adequacy of color contrast. An example is The Color Contast Analyzer.

There are some accessibility guidelines specifically for PowerPoint.  These guidelines are related to the way you build slides and determine reading order so that it is machine readable. Some features of PowerPoint will help you create a more accessible presentation.   These include using the built-in slide layouts and the outline view.   Also, make sure each slide has a unique title.  

Be careful with transitions. Slide transitions and animations that require the use of a mouse will probably cause issues with accessibility, particularly for users who have visual or mobility impairments. Automatic slide transitions pose issues for users who need more time to read or hear the content. 

It is critical that screen reader users can access all the information in the PowerPoint presentations you post online or email to students.  As you create presentations you can test with PowerTalk, a free downloadable reader for PowerPoint slides.  

Built-in Slide Layouts and Unique Titles

Create your slides using the pre-defined slide templates in PowerPoint.  PowerPoint provides a variety of slide layouts structured for accessibility.  The built-in layouts ensure that necessary elements such as a unique title for each slide, structured headings, and proper reading order are included.  Do not insert text boxes to create content.  This will probably be missed by a screen reader.

Use a unique title for each slide using the area intended by the template.  This helps create the table of contents necessary for screen reader users. If you don't want viewers to see the title you can change the color so it is the same as the slide background.  The screen reader will still have the title.  

The video Structuring an Accessible PowerPoint Presentation will demonstrate the use of titles, templates and the outline.

General Formatting Rules

Text and Symbols

When creating PowerPoint slides use the same general considerations for creating text that are required in creating other documents. 

  • Fonts should be large and consistent.  Use a san serif font in black or a dark color; do not use red, or any bright, light, or multi-colored fonts.
  • Bold should be used for emphasis, but not italics or underlined text.
  • Roman numerals will be interpreted as letters by screen readers so these characters should be avoided. For example,   IX will be interpreted as i. x. instead of 9.  Use numbers (1,2,3) instead.
  • Acronyms and abbreviations should be used with caution as these can confuse screen readers.
  • Some special characters such as those used in math and chemistry will require special assistance to achieve accessibility.  Most screen readers can interpret common symbols such as +, =, and %.
Graphics and Images

All images and graphics should have alternative text included.   The alternative text should be written to completely replace the graphic.  Another way to achieve this is to add what would be included in the alternative text to the slide, making the alternative text unnecessary. 

 

Using the Outline View and Selection Pane

Outline View

Use the Outline View in PowerPoint to make sure all elements on each slide are included in the outline and all information in the outline view is in the correct order that it should be read by a screen reader.  To turn on Outline view in PowerPoint, click on the View tab and then select Outline view from the presentations views choices.  Also, you can right click on Outline view and choose to add it to the quick access toolbar.  If you add the Outline view and the Normal view to the quick access toolbar it is easy to toggle between these views while you create your presentation.

Selection Pane

The Selection Pane will give you the order in which a slide would be read by a screen reader. It is located under the Arrange tab in the Home menu. Once you have the Selection Pane on the right side of your screen you will see the order in which items on the slide will be read. One important thing to note is that the list goes from bottom to top. You can click and drag the items into the order you want the content read.