How to Design PowerPoint Presentations Which are EASI to Create While Enhancing Accessible, Clear Communication Norm & Beth Coombs

2 WHAT THIS PRESENTATION WILL COVER Using & Customizing Themes Creating Tables Inserting Slides from a Different PowerPoint PowerPoint Accessibility Checker Creating Handouts Making a Narrated PowerPoint Making a WMV Video

WHAT ARE POWERPOINT THEMES? Themes are on the design ribbon Themes control the general look and feel of all the slides in a presentation Themes provide consistency and prevent the user from having to set features repeatedly for each slide The user can alter a feature on a single slide if it enhances that content 3

AVAILABLE POWERPOINT THEME CHOICES The PowerPoint application comes with several predefined themes for the user to select The designers focus on designs that are attractive and often did not make accessibility a key consideration In selecting a theme, pick something that appeals to you but one which is highly accessible 4

SCREENSHOT OF THEME CHOICES 5

SELECTING THEMES WITH SANS SERIF FONT From the design ribbon, select themes and scan down the list Those using Sans Serif font would meet at least one accessibility criterion 6

SCREENSHOT OF SOME THEMES USING SANS SERIF 7

TWEAKING YOUR THEME So you like a theme but it is not perfect? Pull down Colors menu –Choose one Pull down Font Menu – Choose one Pull down additional theme choices and select ‘SAVE CURRENT THEME’ – make it a title you remember 8

SCREENSHOT OF CUSTOMIZING A THEME 9

COLOR & THEMES While scanning the list of themes, you can see their fonts, their colors and color contrast The better the contrast, the better the accessibility REMEMBER: Color can be used to identify specific items, but those items should also have another means of identification 10

INSERT A TABLE Know the # of Columns & Rows you need in advance From the insert ribbon, insert the table This uses semantic mark-up to store the table details into the slide where assistive technologies and other applications can use them In Table Style Options make sure you check Header Row (and 1 st Column if applicable) 11

INSERTING A TABLE SCREENSHOT 12

INSERT A SLIDE OR SLIDES FROM ANOTHER POWERPOINT From the Home ribbon under new slides select Reuse Slides Browse to find that PowerPoint You should know its name and location It helps to know whether you are selecting specific slides or all slides from that PowerPoint 13

SCREENSHOT OF REUSING SLIDES 14

INSERTING SLIDES INTO YOUR POWERPOINT Now highlight which slide or slides you will insert Next do you want to keep the look and feel of those slides or have them take the look and feel of your current PowerPoint Last click on the item to actually insert those slides and you may need to sort the slides to merge properly 15

16 SHOT OF INSERTING SLIDES

POWERPOINT ACCESSIBILITY CHECKER Using the PowerPoint Accessibility Tool: Go to the ‘file menu’ and select ‘info’ Next select issues Select the “Check Accessibility” option and the document reappears with the task pane showing the inspection Results. 17

SCREENSHOT OF POWERPOINT ACCESSIBILITY 18

PP ACCESSIBILITY CHECKER Select a specific issue to see Additional Info There are 3 issues that people with disabilities might experience with your document Error – Content that makes the document difficult to read and understand Warning – Content that makes the document difficult to understand Tip – Content that people with disabilities can understand, but could be presented in a different way to improve the user’s experience 19

SCREENSHOT OF POWERPOINT ACCESSIBILITY RESULTS 20

COLOR CONTRAST TOOLS There are many accessibility tools to evaluate Web page colors such as the Firefox extension, Wave from WebAIM (wave.webaim.org/toolbar/) Paciello Group color contrast analyzer er/ There is a youtube video of this at ( 21

SAVING THE PRESENTATION AS A HANDOUT A handout of the PowerPoint can help the audience follow you and jot comments on it To make a handout of the PowerPoint, from the File menu, select ‘Save and Send’, select ‘Create Handouts’ and then select ‘Create Handouts’ again to ‘Send to Word’ 22

SHOT OF THE ‘SAVE AND SEND’ OPTIONS 23

SHOT OF THE WORD LAYOUT OPTIONS 24

NARRATED POWERPOINT The more you know what you are going to say the better Use Timings Show media controls Play Narrations and Media controls should both be checked Use timings should NOT be checked 25

MORE NARRATION SETTINGS Now select ‘Record Slide Show’ From Slide Show Ribbon, Uncheck timings and animations Make sure ‘Play Narrations’ and ‘Show Media Controls’ is selected Finally select to start recording 26

CREATING NARRATED POWERPOINT 27

MAKING THE ACTUAL RECORDING Now your first slide will appear and you can begin the narration Move to the next slide and continue the presentation When you finish the last slide and try to move to the next slide, the recording automatically ends the recording 28

SAVING OR NOT SAVING TIMING When you save timings, the show will run by itself using the settings created when you made the recording and the person viewing the presentation has no control of it When you don’t save the timings, the user controls it which is better for studying purposes 29

SAVE AND SEND AS A VIDEO Again go to the ‘Save and Send’ options and select ‘Create Video’ There are a number of possible settings, but I accepted the defaults and selected to save It took some time, but it produced a ‘WMV’ video format which could be a good way to put it on the Web 30

SCREENSHOT OF SAVING AS VIDEO 31

MAJOR ACCESSIBILITY PROBLEMS TO AVOID When possible avoid Text boxes Animations Transitions Drawing tools Hypertext links cannot be activated by a screen reader 32

PPT This presentation will be on EASI’s site at: EASI has been disseminating information on Accessible Technology via Online Courses and Webinars for over 20 years. Visit us to learn about our Free & Fee-based Webinars at EASI.CC and our membership options to obtain discounts on courses and full access to all Webinars and Archives Or Contact Norm at 33