Creating Accessible Presentations Richard Steinberg Texas Department of Assistive and Rehabilitative Services (DARS)

Course Objectives  Understanding Disabilities and Technologies  Presentations: In Person and Online  Preparation Tips  Types of Accessibility Issues and Presentation Situations  Delivery Tips  Best Practices for PowerPoint Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 2

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” --Steven Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 3

Some Statistics  8% of population is colorblind  In Texas = more than 2 million  More than 620,000 blind/Texas  More than 670,000 hearing impaired/Texas Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 4

Prepare, Prepare, Prepare Before presentation, ask participants’ accessibility needs, plan strategy on how to best deliver information, & avoid locking out people with disabilities. Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 5

Types of Presentations  Auditorium  Teleconference or webinar  Small group in person  Teleworking or geographically distant Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 6

Think About Before: Hearing (Deaf or Hard of Hearing)  Sound system  Sign language interpreter  CART (computer assisted real-time translation) services  Accommodations for satellite locations  Captioning and audio description for video  Captions also useful for others:  If anyone isn’t sure exactly what was said  English as a second language  Faster to find information in a transcript than in a video Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 7

Think About Before: Visual (Blind, Low Vision, or Color Blind)  Can everyone see graphics? Describe them/Keep simple.  presentation beforehand.  Do you need to make large print or Braille handouts?  Screen reading or magnifying software, Braille output.  Can’t rely on color alone to convey info.  Color contrast ratio for low vision.  If there’s video, add audio description. Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 8

Think About Before: Other  Physical disabilities:  May interact with computer using different input.  Intellectual disabilities:  May need more time to complete tasks.  Moving or flickering objects could be problem.  And for everyone, disability nor not:  Plain language and multiple languages.  Too much text—people read screen instead of listen.  File size—Can graphics be optimized? Can file be broken into parts?  Connection speed. Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 9

Considerations for In-Person Presentations  Speak clearly into the microphone at a moderate pace, and face audience.  Repeat questions from the audience for all to hear.  Describe graphics.  Keep audio and video accessibility in mind.  Announce slide numbers, titles, and transitions. Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 10

Considerations for Online Presentations  No program for online presentations, collaborations, training, or conferencing meets my agency’s business needs and is fully accessible.  Too many variables with screen readers, operating systems, etc.  Browser window size, colors, and locked text size.  Sometimes programs need additional installations, and users can’t set up properly.  HTML is most accessible. Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 11

Think About Before: eLearning  Have both a presenter and a webinar administrator.  Top of screen, link to:  accessible instructions in guide, user’s manual, or help section  tech support contact information  “Skip to content” link Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 12

Think About Before: eLearning (continued)  Make sure all sections are accessible  Registration, chat panel, submit questions, videos, interactive, quizzes  Phone in or streaming audio  Be consistent and use structure (headings, subheadings, and lists) Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 13

Problems with PowerPoint  Tables can’t be made accessible (no row/column headers).  Charts can have problems depending on how you import.  Colors, animations, and transitions break screen readers.  Problems with blinking and tab order.  Depending on how delivered, problems with resizing text, window size, and contrast override. Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 14

PowerPoint Do’s  Use standard layouts.  Test color contrast.  Test/fix reading order.  Give each slide a unique title.  Insert graphics through icon menu.  Use alt text (also can group multiple objects and add alt text for group). Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 15

PowerPoint Do’s (continued)  Use notes pane to describe complex images, charts, tables, and audio.  Link to transcripts for audio and visual.  Add captions to video and add audio descriptions if necessary.  Use spell check (F7).  If you turn PowerPoint into a video, make a transcript. Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 16

PowerPoint Don’ts  Don’t make columns by separating text with tab key.  Don’t use text boxes.  Don’t draw tables.  Don’t set sounds to play automatically as slide appears.  Don’t use background images, textures, watermarks, animations, or transitions, especially in distributed files. Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 17

Once You Are Done:  Make sure all content is visible in Outline view.  Tab through slide sections to test reading order.  Use accessibility checker as general guidance.  Might have to convert to PDF and fix. Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 18

Checking Color Contrast Free Eyedropper Tool WebAIM Website Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 19

Resources  HHSC Accessible PowerPoint Checklist AccessiblePowerPointDocumentsChecklist.doc AccessiblePowerPointDocumentsChecklist.doc  Federal PowerPoint checklist:  Freedom Scientific: How to create PowerPoint 2007 & 2003 with JAWS  List of Braille Producers in ZIP code beginning with “7”  Colour Contrast Analyser Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations 20

Thanks! DARS Accessibility Team Richard Steinberg – Creating Accessible Presentations