making presentations accessible

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Blog Accessibility 7 Tips On How To Make Accessible Presentations

7 Tips On How To Make Accessible Presentations

Written by: Aditya Rana Aug 18, 2023

Once upon a time, presentations were limited to lecture halls and boardrooms. 

Remember Microsoft PowerPoint? Everyone used it to create slides or pitch decks to share knowledge and exchange ideas with an audience.  

But those times are long gone. 

Today, Canva and Adobe Express have become the gold standard for creating presentations with a global audience online. 

And while these tools offer plenty of presentations templates and customization options to make creating presentations easy, none of them prioritizes accessibility. 

This means presentations made on Canva exclude people with visual impairments or other disabilities because the design does not focus on their needs. 

To prevent that, you need graphic design software that prioritizes accessibility, like Venngage. 

In this post, I’ll show you how Venngage can help anyone create accessible presentations with a WCAG-compliant Accessible Design Tool .

Some of our accessible presentation templates are free and some require a small monthly fee. Sign-up is always free, as is access to Venngage’s drag-and-drop editor 

Click to jump ahead:

• What is an accessible presentation?

7 tips to make accessible presentations

• 4 examples of accessible presentations

What is an accessible presentation?  

An accessible presentation is a type of content that can be understood by everyone, including people with disabilities such as color blindness or dyslexia.

An accessible presentation is different from a normal presentation as there is a greater emphasis on ensuring design (slides, images, charts, and text) can be understood by all types of people.

Here’s an example of an accessible presentation: 

Why should you make your presentations accessible?

Making inclusive and accessible presentations is important because they’re no longer limited to a physical presence.  

Anyone can create a presentation and share it online for the world to consume. 

And with the rise of remote work and interactions happening on platforms like Zoom and Google Meet, presentations fall under the category of accessible documents . 

Want to learn about other accessible content types? Check out our other posts:  A Guide On How To Create Accessible Newsletters How to Use Color Blind Friendly Palettes to Make Your Charts Accessible How to Create Accessible Infographics With Venngage

Imagine what happens when someone creates a presentation that isn’t accessible for a remote meeting with a disabled attendee.

It not only renders the content unusable but hinders effective communication, collaboration, and knowledge dissemination.

How do you make a presentation accessible to everyone?

The best strategy to make your presentations accessible is to follow WCAG guidelines 2.2 developed by the World Wide Web Consortium. 

If you’re in the US, you should refer to the ADA standards for accessible design . This is a federal law that was signed in 1991 to prohibit discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life. ADA standards were later amended in 2008 to ensure websites and digital content are accessible to people with disabilities after a case was settled covering the inaccessibility of Target’s website to individuals with visual impairments.  In the EU, accessibility falls under Web Accessibility Directive (Directive 2016/2102/EU) , which covers accessibility of websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies.

Regardless of the law that applies to your jurisdiction, most governments follow WCAG guidelines. 

This means to make your presentations accessible, you’ll need to set alt text to images , avoid using tables, choose accessible fonts , use accessible colors , and more. 

I’ll cover each of these factors and more in detail in the next section. 

Typography refers to how you arrange and present text in your slides. 

This covers everything from font selection, text size, and line spacing as these elements can either enhance accessibility or become a barrier. 

When it comes to fonts in presentations, make sure to select a sans-serif type.

Fonts like Arial, Helvetica, and Roboto have a clean appearance, but what makes them accessible are distinct letterforms that minimize confusion. 

This helps make text easier to read for people with dyslexia or other reading difficulties.

Here’s an example of an accessible presentation using the sans serif font Karla:

Text size 

Font size is also another crucial factor in ensuring presentation accessibility.

That’s because a large text size makes content on slides easy to read. 

I recommend at least a text size of at least 16px for digital presentations and 24px for presentations that will be delivered in person.

Why? The back row of a room is much further than the distance between you and your laptop screen. So keep in mind where and how your presentations will be consumed when selecting a text size. 

Limit the amount of text 

Slides are supposed to support a presentation and not be the central focus. 

If you include too much text on a slide, you will lose your audience as they will try to read what’s on the slide rather than pay attention to what you’re saying. 

And if someone has an attention deficiency, they will struggle even more to read a slide and listen to what is being said simultaneously. 

So, limit the amount of text in your slides. 

One method to write great slides is to use short phrases and keywords rather than whole sentences or paragraphs. 

Here’s a great example:

Skip the slide transitions

Transitions between slides used to be a cool thing to do.

I’m sure many of us spent obsessing over them while creating a presentation for a school assignment. 

It was believed that they added visual interest to a presentation, helped break up the monotony of static slides, and could engage an audience. 

But guess what?

They’re a strict no-no for accessibility. 

Slide transitions can be visually distracting for people with visual impairments and cause discomfort, confusion, or difficulty in focusing on the content.

They can also increase the load for individuals with cognitive impairments as rapid or complex transitions may make it harder for them to process the information.

Alt text (alternative text, alt tags, alt descriptions or alt attributes) is descriptive text attached to visual elements like photos, icons, and even graphics in presentations. 

Here’s an example:

If a user with visual impairments using a screen reader comes across this slide, they might not be able to see the image. 

Even assistive technology such as a screen reader cannot provide them context unless you specifically write an image alt text for it to describe the image. 

In this example, you might write: “an image of the Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion where six maidens take the place of columns in supporting the entablature.”

To write a good alt text for graphics in your slides, follow these guidelines: 

• Describe the intent of the image
• State why the image is important

Want to learn how to write alt text that’s actually helpful? Read our guide here: 

• Write helpful alternative (alt) text for non-text content

Color contrast

A key section in WCAG guidelines 2.2 is color contrast recommendations to ensure content is visible to people with different vision capabilities. 

The minimum contrast ratio recommended is 4:5:1. 

In other words, for every 5 units of luminance (brightness) in the background, there should be at least 4 units of luminance in the foreground text.

But I recommend going a step above these recommendations. 

You don’t know what type of device users will use to view your presentation and this could affect the clarity of your slides. 

A good color contrast scheme will ensure your decks are visible in dim and bright rooms: 

Here are some tips to ensure adequate contrast in your presentations: 

• Use dark colors on a light background, or light colors on dark background
• Use solid patterns to make any elements layered over it more visible

To learn more about contrast as a design principle, read this post:  A Brief Guide to Contrast – A Design Principle

If you were creating a slide deck in Canva, Adobe, or other cloud-based design tools, you’d have no way to ensure color contrast in your slides directly. 

Instead, you would have to first create a presentation, export it, and use a third-party accessibility tool to test it. 

And if your design failed, you’d have to come back to your tool and repeat the process. 

See the issue here? It can get repetitive and waste time. 

But Venngage’s Accessible Design Tool lets you create accessible presentations from start to finish without having to leave the platform. 

Venngage integrates a WCAG-compliant Color Contrast Checker to let you test your slides as you design. 

Here’s how you can use it: 

• Select “File” from the top navigation menu, and select “Check Accessibility” to open the Accessibility panel.
• All elements are tested against WCAG contrast requirements and results will be listed under the “Color Contrast” header.

Reading order 

If you’re not familiar with screen readers, you might know about the importance of reading order. 

Reading order in accessible presentations refers to the sequence in which text and non-text elements are presented. 

A user without a disability might be able to understand the reading order of content by looking at a design, but screen readers require extra information to interpret the order in which they should present content.

If you don’t set the reading order, a screen reader might go off course and confuse users. 

Learn more about reading order in this post:

• Use Reading Order in your accessible designs and documents

Again, most graphic design tools don’t allow you to directly set the reading order of content in your presentations. 

But Venngage’s built-in Accessibility Checker does. 

• Open “Reading Order” in the Accessibility panel by clicking on “File” next to the Venngage logo above the top toolbar.
• Under “Accessibility”, select “Edit Reading Order.”
• Select the page you want to work on. This should open a list of all text elements on the page
• Click on items in the list to highlight the corresponding text box or non-text element
• Move any item in the list into its logical position with your mouse or keyboard

Save in an accessible format 

When sharing your presentation or pitch deck, most people save in the default .ppt or .pptx format. 

It’s always better to share as an accessible PDF instead. 

While PowerPoint files can be made accessible, this process requires additional effort, but a PDF already support features that enhance accessibility.

Again, if you use Venngage’s Accessible Design Tool to create your presentations, you’ll be able to export your slide deck as an accessible PDF.

Note: This feature is only available for our Business users, but anyone can share a link to their design for free without any impact on the accessibility of your design. 

4 examples of accessible presentations  

Presentations are meant to be engaging and leave a lasting impression. 

But depending on the end objective, knowing the type of presentations to help you best achieve your goal is important. 

A sales-format presentation isn’t going to work for an academic presentation, no matter how accessible you make it. 

Informative presentation

An informative presentation is one where the main goal is to provide the audience with valuable and factual information on a topic. 

The goal is to educate, enlighten, and enhance the audience’s understanding.

This type of presentation is commonly used in educational settings, professional environments, and public speaking engagements.

Here’s an example of an accessible informative presentation:

Pitch presentation

A pitch presentation helps present an idea, product, service, or project to an audience to gain their interest, support, or investment. 

Pitch decks are commonly used in business to persuade potential clients or investors. 

Here’s an example of an accessible pitch deck:

Classic presentation

A classic presentation is the traditional approach to communicating information to an audience. 

These presentations follow a structured format that includes a clear introduction, main content, and conclusion. Classic presentations can be used in various contexts, such as business meetings, academic lectures, and seminars. 

Here’s an example of a classic presentation: 

Sales presentation 

A sales presentation is a targeted communication effort aimed at persuading clients or customers to purchase a product, service, or idea. 

Sales presentations are used to showcase the features, benefits, and value. These presentations are used in various industries, from retail and technology to B2B.

Frequently Asked Questions 

How do accessible presentations benefit different audiences.

Accessible presentations benefit different audiences by ensuring information can be easily understood by everyone. Accessible presentations benefit the following groups: people with visual impairments, people with hearing impairments, people with cognitive disabilities, and people using assistive technology. 

What tools can help in creating accessible presentations?

There are many tools on the market that can help you make accessible presentations such as Canva or Adobe Express, but only Venngage offers a comprehensive accessible design tool that allows you to make and export accessible presentations without having to use a third-party tool or other software. 

Are Google Slides accessible? 

Google Slides are not automatically accessible. Though Google provides some accessibility features like setting alt text to images, other features such as an in-built color contrast checker are missing and will require you to export your design to test on a third-party tool. Therefore, I recommended you use Venngage instead of Google Slides to create fully accessible presentations from start to finish. 

In Summary: Making your presentations or slide deck inclusive is not only an ethical obligation but a necessity to reach a larger target audience

How presentations are created and shared has completely changed. 

In today’s digital world, web-based tools like Venngage are leading the way to make it for anyone to create presentations, including accessible presentations. 

Besides the legal requirements, taking a few moments to make presentations that resonate with everyone will pay off in the long run. 

And Venngage will be there with you the whole way to make it as easy as possible for you no matter the presentation type you need. 

So don’t hesitate. Make your next presentation count by making it accessible. 

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Create Accessible Presentations

How to create accessible Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.

Training Videos

How to Author and Test Microsoft PowerPoint Presentations for Accessibility

The Accessible Electronic Document Community of Practice (AED CoP) created this series of videos to explain and demonstrate the minimum steps needed to ensure your Microsoft PowerPoint presentation is Section 508 conformant.

Duration 43m 54s | 14-Part Video Tutorial

Creating PowerPoint Templates

Learn how to use the Microsoft PowerPoint slide master to help others create accessible presentations. Understand how presentation templates can provide users with a variety of layouts and features that can reduce common accessibility issues when utilized.

Duration: 8m 18s | 1-Part Video Tutorial

Agency-Developed Guidance

The resources in this section were developed by federal agencies and shared here for your convenience. Note, much of this guidance predates the Revised 508 Standards .

• Making a diagram screen reader friendly - ONRR.gov

Related Resources

• Create Accessible Digital Products – Section508.gov
• PowerPoint Accessibility – WebAIM
• How to Make Presentations Accessible to All – W3C WAI
• Alternate Text For Images (PDF, July 2011) – Developed by SSA
• Review WebAIM Alternative Text for appropriate use of alternative text.
• Review W3C’s Alt Decision Tree for guidance on how to describe images.
• Microsoft Accessibility – Microsoft.com

We're always working to improve the information and resources on this website. To suggest a new resource for this or another page, please contact us .

Reviewed/Updated : June 2021

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An official website of the General Services Administration

Your Champion for Inclusion

Creating an Accessible PowerPoint: Step-by-Step Guide

Welcome to a comprehensive guide on how to create an accessible PowerPoint presentation. In this guide, you’ll learn the best practices for making a PowerPoint accessible and how to use the built-in accessibility checker to ensure your presentations are inclusive for all audiences.

Video Guide

Best Practices for Making a PowerPoint Accessible

Before diving into the process of making your PowerPoint accessible, it’s essential to understand some best practices:

• Use a built-in theme.
• Add alternate text to all images.
• Give every slide a unique title.
• Ensure list elements are properly identified within the PowerPoint.
• Format links properly.
• Use table headers in tables.
• Set the reading order .

By following these practices, you can create a PowerPoint presentation that is more accessible and inclusive for all users.

Using the Accessibility Checker in PowerPoint

To begin, launch the accessibility checker in PowerPoint by selecting the File button, then Info, and then Check for Issues. Click on Check Accessibility, which will bring up a list of errors that need to be fixed within the document.

Go through each error, starting with missing alternate text for images. Add appropriate alt text to each image, describing what the image represents. For example, “A screenshot from Adobe Acrobat with a parent figure tag on display.”

Next, ensure that hyperlinks are properly formatted. While you may want to leave the full URL for presentational purposes, it’s better for accessibility to use descriptive link text instead.

Ensure each slide has a unique title and properly identify list elements as you go through your slides.Additionally, check that any tables are using table headers for added accessibility.

If images do not add significant information to the presentation, mark them as decorative. The accessibility checker will no longer flag them as errors.

After addressing all errors, check for warnings about the slide’s reading order from the accessibility checker. To fix this, open the reading order pane and rearrange the content for the correct reading order. For instance, make sure to read the slide number last.

With all errors and warnings resolved, your accessible PowerPoint is ready to go! Remember, while accessibility checkers are not always perfect, PowerPoint’s checker is more fine-tuned, and following its guidance will help you create more inclusive presentations.

Remember, creating accessible PowerPoint presentations not only benefits those with disabilities but also ensures your content is available to a broader audience, making your presentations more effective and inclusive.

Start from scratch

Sometimes it is easier to simply copy and paste the content from an inaccessible PowerPoint into a new accessible template. The video below shows a real-life practice of how to do just that.

I can be  your accessibility expert . I offer tailored solutions to ensure your documents meet and exceed compliance expectations. For more detailed insights, tutorials, and in-depth discussions on accessibility and related topics, don’t forget to check out my YouTube channel:  The Accessibility Guy on YouTube . Subscribe for regular updates!

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How to Create Accessible PowerPoints

Tips for how to create accessible powerpoints for low vision and print disabilities..

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I’ve probably watched thousands of PowerPoint presentations over the years and created hundreds of PowerPoints for my classes, conference presentations, guest lectures, and even for PowerPoint parties with friends. I’ve had several people ask me for tips on how to create accessible PowerPoints for audience members with print disabilities, including low vision, dyslexia, visual processing disorders, and similar, and PowerPoint has added a lot of awesome features over the years to make creating accessible presentations easier than ever. Here are my favorite tips for how to create accessible PowerPoints, great for professors, teachers, and speakers.

Use the Accessibility Checker

The Accessibility Checker is a great tool for learning how to create accessible PowerPoints, because it shows the user exactly how they can improve the accessibility of their content for assistive technology users. Accessibility Checker was a game changer for some of my professors when it was first released, as they would often forget to add alt text or image descriptions to slides, which made it more difficult for me to take notes. It’s worth noting that Accessibility Checker does not automatically fix accessibility issues, rather it guides users on how to make changes to their presentation content.

Accessibility Checker can be found in the “Review” ribbon in Microsoft PowerPoint and several other Microsoft applications, including Microsoft Word.

Related links

• Designing Accessible Documents With Microsoft Word
• How To Use Microsoft Office Sway With Assistive Technology
• Inclusion in Action: My Microsoft Feature

Add alt text and image descriptions

Alt text and image descriptions make it possible for screen reader users and users with vision loss to identify what is in an image. Alt text is not visible during the presentation and is a short 1-2 sentence description of visual details in an image, while an image description is longer and may be included as a caption for the image so it can be read by anyone, not just screen reader users or people who manually check for alt text. For presenters, it is helpful to include both alt text and image descriptions when possible as they are beneficial for audience members to ensure they understand what is in an image.

Images that are purely decorative and do not provide any meaningful information should be marked as decorative.

To add alt text in PowerPoint:

• Insert an image or other visual content into the presentation
• Right-click or long press on the image and select View Alt Text. Alternatively, select Alt Text in the Picture Format section of the ribbon.
• Type a 1-2 sentence description of the image, or have PowerPoint auto-generate alt text and correct the description as needed
• To view alt text without a screen reader, right-click or long press on an image and select View Alt Text, or use a text-to-speech tool like Read Aloud to read alt text and text content on the page

Image descriptions can be added either as a caption for the image, or included as part of bullet points in a slide with the leading phrase “Image Description:” or “ID:” before the description.

• How To Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions for the Visually Impaired
• How To Write Alt Text And Image Descriptions For Photojournalism Images
• How To Write Image Descriptions For Buildings and Architecture
• How To Create Accessible Pie Charts For Low Vision
• How To Create Accessible Map Charts For Low Vision
• How To Access Images Without Alt Text

When possible, use the default templates

PowerPoint templates are accessible by design, as the majority of templates contain easy to read fonts, straightforward structures that follow a logical reading order for screen readers, and non-obtrusive color schemes that work well for users with colorblindness or other color deficiencies. I recommend sticking with the default templates when it comes to structuring text, and using the Designer feature to change the visual appearance of slides and content.

What if I want to use a custom template?

There are some contexts where someone might need to use a custom template, like a diagram that is confusing to screen reader users or that is hard to zoom in on with low vision. There are two options for this:

• Option 1 is to verify the reading order in Accessibility Checker and group items into logical units, adding alt text that will be read out loud by screen reader users and adjusting the order in the reading pane as needed. The reading pane can be found in the drop-down menu for Accessibility Checker in the Review tab at the top of the screen
• Option 2 is to take a screenshot of the custom designed slide and insert it in a new slide, adding alt text to the image that contains text and/or descriptions of visual elements
• How To Create Accessible Diagrams For Low Vision
• How To Make ASCII/Emoji Memes Accessible For Visual Impairment
• Paper Colors And Low Vision
• Choosing Device Wallpapers and Backgrounds With Low Vision
• How To Create Accessible Assignments With Microsoft Office Sway
• Quick Ways To Improve Accessibility For Virtual Learning Materials

Choose a font that is easy to read

There isn’t a specific font that is considered the “best font for print disabilities”, but there are a few fonts that are known for being great options and easy to read for presenters and audience members. Some examples of popular fonts that work great for PowerPoint include:

• Times New Roman
• Bebas Neue (for titles)
• My Eight Favorite Free Fonts For Print Disabilities
• How I Document Accessibility Preferences With Low Vision
• How To Make Historical Documents Accessible For Low Vision

Use larger text sizes and keep text to a minimum

Trying to read a large volume of text can be frustrating for both audience members and presenters, so it is better to use large text sizes and keep text on slides to a minimum- I would avoid using fonts that are smaller than 28-pt size when presenting in a large room, and no smaller than size 44 pt when presenting to an audience that primarily consists of people with low vision.

I recognize that copying down information can be challenging for PowerPoints, so when presenting I give audience members access to a copy of a transcript of my presentation or a take-away document that goes more in-depth for resources. My professors will include additional information in the Notes section of each slide when posting presentations for class.

• Creating Take-Away Documents With Microsoft Office Sway
• How I Use Microsoft OneNote With Low Vision
• Why Every Student Needs Microsoft Office Lens
• Tips For Screensharing With Low Vision

Avoid excessive animation and provide verbal warnings when possible

Animations and slide transitions can be disorienting for some people with motion sensitivity, so I don’t use any animations in my presentations and provide verbal warnings before advancing to the next slide. Designers should be careful to avoid animations that have a strobe, flashing, or spinning effect, as these are more likely to trigger motion sickness.

Another option is to have animations activated by a click instead of automatically, so that viewers can be prepared for when an animation will activate and look away if needed. When my teachers would use animations on presentations in high school, they would give me a copy of the presentation to watch on my laptop and I would remove the animations or play them slowly on my own device instead of looking up at the board.

Use keyboard shortcuts to streamline the authoring and presenting process

One of my favorite tricks for how to create accessible PowerPoints quickly is to use keyboard shortcuts, which are helpful for screen reader users or people who have trouble identifying icons. I’ve linked a list of keyboard access shortcuts for PowerPoint below from Microsoft Support, though users can also get keyboard shortcuts overlayed on their screen by pressing F10.

• Use keyboard shortcuts to create PowerPoint presentations – Microsoft Support
• Seven Accessibility Features You Didn’t Know Existed In Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Office Specialist Certification and Low Vision

Other tips for how to create accessible PowerPoints

• When presenting, I have a copy of the presentation displayed on my iPad or printed out in full page view so I can reference the presentation without having to turn my head towards the screen
• For the design process, I typically start with the default Office theme and explore visuals in Designer when I am finished writing and inserting content
• When presenting charts or graphs, provide a link to the original data in the slide. This can be a CSV file, Excel sheet, or website link
• I personally find the Cameo feature that adds a camera feed in front of slides to be distracting and hard to follow as a user with low vision, so I refrain from using this
• Before presenting accessible PowerPoints, some presenters will give a visual description of what they look like for audience members- learn more about this practice in  How To Create Helpful Visual Descriptions For Visually Impaired Audiences

By Veronica Lewis/Veronica With Four Eyes,  www.veroniiiica.com

Updated September 2023; original post published October 2017.

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How to create accessible map charts for low vision

Introduction to Web Accessibility

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PowerPoint Accessibility

You are here: Home > Articles > PowerPoint Accessibility

Introduction

Microsoft PowerPoint is one of the most popular tools for creating slide show presentations. It is often used to organize thoughts for a meeting or lesson, to present key points in a live presentation, and even to create handouts. This article outlines how to can make PowerPoint files more accessible on the web.

Unless noted, the steps outlined in this article apply to Office 2016 and 365, Windows and Mac. Most screenshots are from the PowerPoint 2016 for Windows.

Templates and Themes

The first step in creating a PowerPoint presentation is choosing a slide theme or template. The Design tab contains many built-in Themes and color Variants that can be used to change the look of a presentation, as well as the ability to create custom themes

Some of these templates have low contrast between slide text and the slide background, and a few may also have busy backgrounds that can make text even more difficult to read. Be sure to choose a theme with good contrast and with simple backgrounds. If the presentation will be viewed on a projector, the contrast and readability may need to be even more pronounced.

In addition to built-in and custom themes, there are thousands of templates available for download. You can search for a template by selecting File > New, and then describing the template in the Search field. Add the word "accessible" to the search for templates that are tagged as "accessible" by the creator. While this doesn't guarantee accessibility, it increases the likelihood of finding a good template. If in doubt, Microsoft has identified several templates that are optimized for accessibility .

Slide Layouts

The most important part of PowerPoint accessibility is the use of slide "layouts." Used correctly, these will ensure information on the slides have the correct heading structure and reading order.

Most slide layouts include a slide "title," usually at the top of the slide. They also typically contain one or more "placeholder" areas where you add content like lists, images, and tables to each slide. The title will be presented as a heading to screen reader users, and will be the first thing read on each slide. If each slide has a descriptive title, this will make it much easier for screen reader users to read and navigate the presentation.

Create a new slide

Although you can change the layout of a slide at any time, it is usually easiest to choose your layout when creating a new slide. You can add a new slide from the Home or Insert tab. If you choose the New Slide icon , PowerPoint will usually create a new slide with the same layout as the currently-selected slide.

You can also select the slide layout while creating a new slide. In Windows, select either the small arrow or the text " New Slide " right below the icon, and a menu will drop down with all the available slide layouts. Select one of these options to create a new slide with this layout.

In Mac, select the small arrow next to the New Slide icon to show a similar dropdown menu.

Change slide layout

To change the layout of an existing slide:

• Select the slide you would like to change.
• On the Home tab, select Layout .
• Choose the desired layout from the dropdown.

This new layout will be applied to the selected slide and PowerPoint will try to move the slide contents to the correct place in the new layout. If you're moving from one pre-built layout to another, this usually works fairly well. But if you apply a layout to a slide that wasn't structured correctly in the first place (e.g., pictures and text boxes added to a blank slide), it may take some work like cutting, pasting, and deleting unnecessary boxes to apply the correct layout.

Slide Master

It is possible to make changes to all slides within a presentation, like changing the text size of all slide titles. You can also make changes to a specific slide layout, or even create new custom layouts. All of these changes are possible in the Slide Master view. This view allows you to create accessible layouts that meet the needs of the presentation while maintaining a proper heading structure and reading order.

To open Slide Master, select the View tab > Slide Master .

The different layouts that are available in the presentation will be displayed in the left-hand sidebar. The first slide in this sidebar is the Master Layout . Changes made to the Master Layout will usually be applied to every slide in the presentation. Below this Master Layout are the different individual layouts. Changes made to one of these will be applied to every slide that uses this layout.

To create a new slide layout, select Insert Layout , and then Rename to give the new layout a descriptive name. You can then insert placeholder objects, change the size and position of objects on the slide, etc.

Once all the changes are complete, select Close Master View on Windows or Close Master on Mac. Changes made within this view will automatically be applied throughout the presentation.

Slide Reading Order

Although it is best to use slide layouts when possible, there may be times when you need to add content to a slide when it would be impractical to create a new slide layout. By default, a screen reader will read the slide title first, followed by other content in elements defined in the slide layout. Then it will read any additional content on the side in the order it was added to the slide. If you add content with this principle in mind, it should be presented to screen reader users in a logical order.

You can check or change this reading order by selecting Home > Arrange > Selection Pane . The Selection Pane will appear in the right-hand sidebar.

The pane will show every object on the slide. Highlighting an object in the pane will also highlight it in the slide. The reading order for the elements in this page is bottom to top . At first this may seem illogical, but it helps to think of these objects as layers on a slide. The first object on the slide will be read first. If another object is added to the page on top of the this first object, it will be read next by a screen reader (and will also cover the first object visually). To reorder an item, simply click and drag . PowerPoint for Windows also has up/down arrow buttons that can be used to reorder items.

The Arrange dropdown menus also includes options to reorder a single object. This will change the visual position on the page as well as the reading order.

If you use these options, be sure to check the Selection Pane to ensure the reading order makes sense.

Alternative Text for Images

PowerPoint presentations usually include images, and these images need equivalent alternative text .

PowerPoint 365 and 2019

The process to add alternative text is straightforward in PowerPoint 365 and 2019:

Right-click on the image and select Edit Alt text , then enter appropriate alternative text in the field that appears in the Alt Text sidebar.

If the image is decorative, leave the field blank and check Mark as decorative .

Do not select the "Generate a description for me" button. The quality of the automatically-generated descriptions is usually very poor, and a description of an image is often not the same as alternative text.

PowerPoint 2016

To add alternative text to an image in PowerPoint 2016:

• Right-click on the image and choose Format Picture .
• In the Format Picture sidebar, Select the Size & Properties icon and choose Alt Text .
• Enter appropriate alternative text in the Description field only (not the Title field).

Unless it is part of the slide background, there is no way to hide a decorative image in PowerPoint 2016 or older. If the presentation is saved to a PDF, decorative images can be hidden in Acrobat Professional .

In HTML, there are ways to identify row and column headers in a data table that make the contents of the table much more accessible to screen reader users. PowerPoint allows you to identify a single row of column headers and a single column of row headers. To identify the headers in a table:

• Click inside the table. The Table Tools options should become visible, and the Design tab (called Table Design on Mac) should be open .
• If the top row of the table contains headers for each column (most tables do), check the make sure the Header Row checkbox is checked.
• If the first column of the table contains headers for each row, check the First Column checkbox.

Most screen readers will not identify table headers in PowerPoint, but we still recommend going through this process. It is important to identify headers visually, and support for table headers in Microsoft Office is improving constantly. Plus, these headers will be identified when saving to PDF in the most up-to-date versions of PowerPoint.

PowerPoint automatically creates a link when a user pastes a full URL onto a slide and presses Enter or Space. Raw URLs may not make sense to screen reader users or others, so make the link text descriptive.

To change the link text right-click the link and select Edit Hyperlink . On Mac, right-click the link and select Hyperlink > Edit Hyperlink . A dialog will appear. Click in the Text to Display field at the top of the dialog and enter descriptive link text.

If you are creating a presentation that is intended to be displayed both electronically and in print, you may want to include the URL and a description in the link text. For example, "WebAIM Introduction to Web Accessibility (webaim.org/intro)."

Check Accessibility

PowerPoint includes a tool that will identify many common accessibility issues. The accessibility checker is basically the same in Windows and Mac, but the steps to start the check are different.

To run the accessibility checker in Windows, select File > Info . Select the Check for Issues button and choose Check Accessibility .

To start the accessibility checker in Mac, select the Review tab, then choose Check Accessibility .

In Windows and Mac, the Accessibility Checker sidebar will appear to the right. The checker presents accessibility errors (e.g., images with no alternative text), warnings (e.g., unclear link text) and tips (e.g., check slide reading order for slides with custom content). Selecting an item in the report will highlight the issue within the slide. Information about the issue, and instructions on how to repair it, will also appear at the bottom of the sidebar.

When the issue is addressed, it will disappear from the report automatically.

Other Accessibility Principles

• Make sure text is not too small, especially if the presentation will be viewed on a projector.
• Do not use color as the only way to convey information.
• Transitions and animations should be simple.
• Complex or automatic transitions and animations can be distracting.
• Use clear and simple language. If you have embedded video, ensure the video is captioned.
• If you have embedded audio, include a transcript.

Convert PowerPoint to PDF

PowerPoint is effective for face-to-face presentations, but it is usually not the best format for content on the web. The file can be large, and users must either have Microsoft Office or a plugin in order to view the file. PDF is often a better format to present PowerPoint presentations electronically. The file size is relatively small, distracting slide transitions are usually removed, and everyone has a PDF reader.

All of the accessibility features outlined in this article will be retained in a PDF file, assuming it is created correctly. (See our article on Creating PDF files from Office documents ). If your presentation has tables or decorative images, and you know how to add accessibility information in Adobe Acrobat, your PDF file could even be made more accessible than the original PowerPoint file.

Making Events Accessible: Checklist for meetings, conferences, training, and presentations that are remote/virtual, in-person, or hybrid

Everyone: understanding the basics.

Be open to diversity in your audience and any accessibility issues. Basically, be aware that some of your audience might not be able to:

• see well or at all,
• hear well or at all,
• move well or at all,
• speak well or at all, or
• understand information presented in some ways well or at all.

For example, to be inclusive:

• organizers ensure the remote platform and the in-person venue is accessible
• speakers describe pertinent visual information
• participants speak clearly into a good quality microphone
• and other considerations listed on this page

Most aspects that are general good practice are particularly important for people with cognitive disabilities. For example:

• For meetings and presentations, start with an overview and end with a review of the most important points
• Use consistent design in slide presentations to limit cognitive load
• Use clear and understandable content

Respect participant’s needs and be open for other accessibility issues. People might have accessibility needs that you didn’t think of. For example: Someone might need to take breaks at set times for insulin injections. Someone with Tourette syndrome might randomly shout out during a session. Someone with a physical disability who cannot take notes might need to record the session.

Often speakers won’t know if participants have disabilities. For example, at a large conference where organizers didn’t ask registrants. In some cases, you might know the accessibility needs of participants ahead of time. Even then something could change. For example, a new participant could join the training at the last minute. Or someone could develop accessibility needs before the training.

Make your event and your presentations accessible so that you are prepared for such situations.

Sessions that are accessible to people with disabilities are also inclusive to many more audiences. For example, people with different learning styles and people who are not fluent in the language. Accessible sessions also have additional benefits to organizations and individuals.

If you want to learn about more benefits of accessible media, see User Experiences and Benefits to Organizations and benefits of transcripts .

Providing Accessible Material and Media

Format - offer handouts, slides, and other material in accessible formats.

Use formats that allow users to adapt the presentation to meet their needs, such as word processing, HTML, or EPUB. (Most users are more skilled at adapting word processing formats.) Avoid providing material only in formats that users cannot adapt, including PDF and protected Word documents. Even tagged PDF is not accessible to users with low vision and cognitive disabilities who need to change font size, line spacing, colors, zoom, reflow, and print; and has significant exceptions for screen reader users. ( references )

Some participants will need print material in alternative formats such as large print and braille. If you give participants accessible digital material in advance, then you usually don’t need to provide these alternative print formats.

Materials - Ensure slides, handouts, and other electronic material for participants is accessible

For example, provide alternative text for images and mark up headings. HTML material, such as a conference website, should meet WCAG , at least Level AA. ( Preparing Slides and Projected Material below has details for speakers. Some other resources are listed under For More Information below.)

Multimedia - Make media fully accessible, including audio and video used in sessions and recordings of sessions provided afterwards

For example, provide captions (called “intralingual subtitles” in some areas) and/or transcripts for audio, and provide audio description of visual information in videos. For guidance on creating accessible media, see Making Audio and Video Media Accessible .

Organizers: Planning the Event

Initial event planning, ensure the venue is accessible to speakers and participants (in-person).

For example, ensure the building entrance, meeting room, presentation stage, and bathrooms are accessible. (There are checklists online to help ensure a facility is accessible, such as Accessibility Checklist for Existing Facilities .) Provide accessibility information, such as the accessible routes between meeting rooms. Let speakers and participants check out the rooms in advance to suggest optimum positioning of the speaker, screen, seating, etc.

Ensure the remote meeting platform is accessible (remote)

This includes providing multiple connection options. In the W3C resource Accessibility of Remote Meetings , see the section on selecting an accessible remote meeting platform .

Arrange for assistive listening devices (ALD)(e.g., hearing loops), interpreters, and captioners, as needed

(Assistive listening devices ( ALDs ), interpreters , and ( captioners ) are explained in the Terminology section.)

Work with participants and service providers to ensure that important details are taken care of. For example, a remote captioner can hear the audio clearly, an in-person captioner has the connections they need, and a screen is provided for participants to read the captions. Or, microphones and the presenter’s computer sound output is connected to the ALD system.

Ask speakers and participants about their accessibility requirements

For example, include a question on registration forms for conferences, send an email to company-internal training participants, etc. Invite participants to include specific requests.

Event Setup

Ensure adequate sound system, and arrange for microphones.

Often wireless lapel microphones are best so that speakers can move around. When the audience will be commenting or asking questions, provide microphones for them.

Arrange for good visibility of the speakers and interpreters

Have good lighting on their face and upper body. Avoid distracting backgrounds, such as bright sunlight or flashing light.

Arrange for good Internet connections

In-person: Participants might need Internet access to follow along with an online version of displayed material. If using remote captioning , you will need a reliable connection that has enough bandwidth for transferring audio.

Remote: Strong, stable connections help speakers come through clearly.

Consider accessibility when planning the schedule

Some people need breaks to take care of medical needs. For in-person, it may take more time to get from room to room.

Keep to the schedule as much as possible, and inform participants ahead of time of any changes.

Plan to limit distractions

Avoid distractions such as catering setup during a meeting or presentation. Consider not having background music in the halls or conference rooms, including during breaks. Or, keep the volume low. Background noise is difficult for people who are hard of hearing and for captioners.

Give speakers accessibility requirements and guidance

Tell speakers that you expect their material and presentations to be accessible to people with disabilities. Consider including accessibility requirements in any contracts. Consider including the link to this page (www.w3.org/WAI/training/accessible) in speaker guidelines, e-mails, web pages, etc.

Coordinate getting material to participants, interpreters, and captioners

Work with speakers to get material to participants with accesibility needs, to interpreters, and to captioners before the event.

Speakers: Planning Your Session

Initial session planning, provide material ahead of time.

Provide slides, handouts, and other material to participants, interpreters , and captioners , as needed. Make it accessible. (More about providing accessible material is above.)

Remote: Note that content in screen sharing is often not accessible. You usually need to provide the material so participants can access it directly, not through the screen sharing.

Work with interpreters and captioners

Give them material in advance. Explain acronyms, terms, names, etc. that you will use. Be available to answer questions.

Caption audio, or otherwise make it available

Ideally, any audio you use is also available in text, for example, videos are captioned. However, if captioning is provided for your presentation, that can provide text of the audio.

Consider activities

Remember potential accessibility issues with participant activities. For example, it may be difficult or impossible for some people to use an online polling feature, arranging sticky notes on a virtual or physical board, or respond quickly to questions.

Use multiple communication methods for different learning styles

Some people can better understand verbal information. Other people can better understand pictures and diagrams. And others better understand text.

Preparing Slides and Projected Material

Limit the amount of text on each slide.

It is difficult for many people to read text and listen to the speaker at the same time. Avoid putting lots of text or other content on slides. (If you want to provide additional information, you could put it in a handout or in slides with notes separate from the presentation.) Use simple language .

Make text and important visuals big enough to be read even from the back of the room

This includes graphics on slides, videos, posters, and other non-electronic material.

Use an easy-to-read font face

Simple fonts with consistent thickness are often easier to read from a distance. Fonts where parts of the letters are thin are harder to read. Avoid fancy fonts that are difficult to read.

Use sufficient contrast between colors (“luminance contrast”)

This includes contrast between text and background colors, and between colors in graphs. There are guidelines for web pages that you can use to help determine sufficient contrast — even though the medium is different. See Understanding contrast guidance and contrast evaluation tools . Use appropriate background and text colors. Some suggest when presenting in a light room, to display dark text on a light background. And when presenting in a darkened room, to display light text on a dark background. Ensure that the weight of text is sufficient (for example, bold).

Consider how to use motion or animations

This includes text or images flying in from the side. Will the motion make the information easier to understand, or is it unnecessary? Certain types of motion can be particularly distracting for some people, and can make some people ill. Avoid blinking or flashing that could cause seizures. See Understanding Guideline 2.3: Seizures and Physical Reactions .

Make provided material accessible

If you are giving participants material, make it accessible. See provide accessible material above. An example of presentation material provided in both presentation format and web format (HTML and CSS) is linked from the top of the page after “The Benefits of WCAG 2 presentation is available in 3 formats:”.

Participants and Speakers: During the Meeting or Presentation

Describe all relevant visual information.

Say all of the information that is on each slide, including text and graphics. (This does not mean that you have to read the slide exactly as it is. It just means that you cover the visual information in what you say.)

Describe visual information in the environment. For example, a speaker asks people to raise their hands if they make their websites fully accessible. The speaker should then describe the visual response: “About half raised their hand”.

Speak clearly

And avoid speaking too fast, so participants and interpreters can better understand you and keep up.

Use simple language

Avoid or explain jargon, acronyms, and idioms. For example, expressions such as “raising the bar” can be interpreted literally by some people with cognitive disabilities and can be confusing.

Give people time to process information

Pause between topics. When you ask if anyone has questions, some people with cognitive disabilities will need extra time to form their thoughts into words.

Be visible and in good light when you talk, so participants can see your face. This helps some people hear and understand better, including many who are hard of hearing or have difficulty understanding accents. Be careful not to face away from your webcam or the audience to read projected material.

Use a good quality microphone

Ensure the microphone is positioned so it picks up your voice well. Note that if you ask “Can everyone hear me OK?” some people might be uncomfortable saying that they cannot.

In-person: Some people might need the audio electronically, even in a small room. This includes remote captioners and people using ALDs .

Ensure that all relevant sound is audible through the sound system

For example, if someone puts a question in remote chat or someone in-person doesn’t have a microphone, repeat their questions and comments into your microphone before replying.

Limit distractions

For example, ask participants to turn off mobile phone notifications, and presenters to turn off system notifications. Discourage side conversations during meetings and presentations.

For More Information

Details on how to make material that you give to participants accessible is beyond the scope of this document.

There are resources online that provide related guidance, such as:

• ADOD Project links to Authoring Techniques for Accessible Office Documents, including for word processing and presentation applications
• Planning an Accessible Conference , Accessible Virtual Conferences
• Interacting with People with Disabilities

Related information from W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI):

• Accessibility of Remote Meetings for details on meeting platform accessibility , hybrid meetings , and more.
• Making Audio and Video Media Accessible for detailed guidance on making multimedia accessible.
• Introduction to Web Accessibility - briefly introduces web accessibility and links to more resources.
• WCAG 2 Overview - introduces guidelines for making web content accessible. This includes presentation material, online learning, and other material provided in web formats.
• Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) home page - links to guidelines/standards and a wide range of support material .

Terminology

Home Blog Presentation Ideas Accessibility in Presentations: Making your Slides Accessible

Accessibility in Presentations: Making your Slides Accessible

Accessibility in web, print, and presentation design is of paramount importance. Approximately 2.2 billion people in the world have a near or distance vision impairment. An even larger number lives with other types of visual or cognitive dysfunctions. When delivering a presentation to an audience, you never know what type of people will attend. Some audience members may have dyslexia, color blindness, moderate or severe forms of vision impairments which can affect their ability to enjoy your presentation as much as others do. This post offers a walkthrough of web content accessibility guidelines and PowerPoint accessibility features that will help you design and deliver more inclusive presentations. 

Accessibility Definition 

Accessibility focuses on how a disabled person can access or benefit from a physical or digital object they interact with. 

Web accessibility, in particular, pertains to how people can interact with online materials, apps, and digital systems effectively. A huge body of website accessibility research is specifically dedicated to removing software usage barriers for people with different types of disabilities. 

What’s more, improving web accessibility is a global regulatory agenda. The US adopted the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) back in 1990. Three decades later, it remains an important regulatory mechanism for imposing compliance on digital service providers. Last year, over 2,285 ADA class-action suits were filed against businesses, who failed to create an inclusive environment. 

Globally, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) , introduced by World Wide Web Consortium, are used to ensure a greater degree of accessibility for web content and web experience. Specifically, these include guidelines for: 

• Adding support for voice-control systems
• Using transcripts and subtitles for content 
• Prioritizing convenient navigation that does not use color 
• Incorporating descriptive captions for images (alt texts) 

To ensure compliance with the above, a lot of free web accessibility tools were created such as Section508 test , AChecker accessibility checker , and MAGENTA among others. 

ADA accessibility guidelines also extend to presentation design . Since presentations are primarily digital mediums nowadays, making them easily accessible for different user groups is highly important. 

Benefits of Making Your Presentations Accessible

Some of the benefits of making your slides accessible are:

• Inclusion of audience members with special needs
• Ability to engage people who lack language fluency
• Improved perception of you as a speaker (and as company representative) 
• Supplementary materials such as transcripts or audio can be re-distributed through other channels
• Presentation transcripts also help improve the SEO of the website where they are published

Let’s see how to create accessible PowerPoint & Google Slides presentations.

How to Make Your Presentations More Accessible: Best Practices 

Accessibility is all about making your content more inclusive to diverse people, despite their physical or mental abilities. It doesn’t take long since PowerPoint includes a number of accessibility features. You just need to be a bit more mindful about your design choices to create accessible designs. 

Fonts can easily make or break the aesthetic appeal of the presentation. But far more importantly, a non-suitable font can prevent some audience members from benefiting from your slides. 

Here are some best practices for accessible PowerPoint fonts: 

• The best font size for a PowerPoint presentation is a minimum of 24 points . It’s okay to use a bigger typeface for headings and subheads to accentuate the important information. Likewise, go for a bigger size if you anticipate presenting in a big conference room. 
• Prioritize sans serif fonts. Sans serif fonts are those without small lines (serifs) at the ends of characters. Popular examples of sans serif fonts are Palatino, Georgia, Verdana, Tahoma, Arial, and Helvetica. Also, avoid handwritten and calligraphy-style fonts as these are the hardest to read for most people. 

• Do not use flickering, flashing, and animated text. Such animations may not land well with visually impaired people or those suffering from epilepsy. In most cases, flashing fonts also make your presentation look cluttered and amateurish.
• Use bold for emphasis. When you want to highlight an important idea, use bold styling over underline and/or italics . The latter change the letter shapes, making them less identifiable, and thus less readable.
• Mark the hyperlinks. A good accessibility practice is to mark all hyperlinks are marked properly with both color and underlying for color-blind people. Also, use descriptive hyperlink texts. Otherwise, people who use screen readers will struggle to understand where the link leads. 

Slide Texts 

Once you’ve settled on the fonts, you’d be itching to type some presentation texts. But before (and after) you do the writing, make sure that your accessible template has the following characteristics: 

• Use strong contrast between text and background. Contrast helps visually impaired people better distinguish the characters. Use PowerPoint accessibility checker to locate insufficient color contrasts on slides. Also, check recommended color contrast values for text by WCGA. 

• Go for simpler language. Don’t use jargon, industry-specific terms, acronyms, or catch-phrases. Most are not universally understood and some audience members may struggle to comprehend them. By using simpler language you are not “dumbing down” your copy — you make it more clear and concise. Add some more powerful words to make your texts more compelling. 
• Check your texts for logic flow. Screen readers typically stand the text elements of the slide in the order they were added to the slide. It may be different from the order in which they actually appear. So double-check that your text flow is correct. Also, try adding ScreenTips if you are using PowerPoint.
• Don’t bottom-align slide text. Why? Because that may hide some of the bottom texts from people sitting in the last rows if the seating is tiered. 
• Use captions and subtitles. Both can help audience members to better follow your delivery. Also, it’s easy to do since PowerPoint allows to automatically create real-time automatic captions for slides . 

Presentation Visuals

Finally, an accessible PowerPoint template also features images everyone can understand, interpret, relate to, and process. Remember: some of the people may not see your slides well. Hence, you may need to add some extra cues for them. 

Here are the essential accessibility practices for improving presentation visuals: 

• Limit the use of GIFs, flashy videos or, animated transitions. Likewise, avoid shifting colors, rotating icons, and moving borders. Abusing of animations, or using too many effects and flashes in your slides can create unnecessary clutter and worsen the reading experience. 
• Opt for texts over videos, when possible. If you absolutely must add a short video, ensure that the clip has good audio context for the listener to understand its content. As an alternative, add a slide note with a summary of the video clip.
• Include Alternative Texts (Alt Texts) for visuals. An ADA compliant PowerPoint presentation has to include alt texts for all images and other visual content. Alt texts can be processed by a screen reader, meaning people with visual impairments can better understand the featured information. Adding an alt text is easy. Right-click the graphic, select Format object , then click Alt Text pane, and provide a brief text description. The same approach works for Shapes. In the example below we can see how we configured the Alt Text for a human figure in the Health Check Dashboard template .

• Highlight diverse people on your slides. Our world is wonderfully diverse. So add use inclusive visuals featuring folks of different backgrounds, ethnicities, body shapes, and abilities. In fact, that’s what most people expect from you. According to a recent Getty poll , 80% of consumers believe that businesses should show more ethnic diversity in their advertising.
• Avoid complex charts or tables. These are often hard to process for screen reading software and audience members with cognitive issues. Thus, make your graphics as simple as possible. Be careful while using SVG format. SVGs are great as they give a lot of flexibility for designing the slides and including graphics in your presentations at a minimum file size, but the format lacks semantics for expressing structures like bar charts, tables, scattered plots, etc. The above makes the content difficult to parse by a screen reader. 

Presentation Delivery

When the big day of the public speech comes, don’t let your accessibility design efforts go to waste by sabotaging the delivery. Remember: accessibility is about creating an inclusive experience, not just objects. Respectively, you’ll need to adjust your delivery too. Here’s how: 

Before starting the presentation, ask if there are any people with special needs in the audience. That’s a simple gesture of courtesy that goes a long way. If you see some raised hands, ask how you could adjust your speech for the person’s comfort. 

Overall, speak slowly and distinctively. Use simpler language when you can, mimicking the terms you are using in the presentation copy. Don’t overload your slides with text and instead use voice to communicate and explain extra concepts. Give enough time for the audience to read the slides. Make timely pauses, allowing people to catch up with reading and processing your main points. 

Keep your language more inclusive overall. Use “they” as your main pronoun when making a generalization, instead of masculine pronoun (e.g., he), or the awkward “she/he” combo. Likewise, use plural noun forms (e.g. people, workers, employees) over terms marked for masculine (e.g. foreman, fireman, etc). 

When you want to introduce a hero to your story, for example, as part of a case study , go for a “gender-neutral” name such as Alex, Dana, Kim to avoid stereotyping either males or females. By all means, avoid blanket, generalistic statements in your presentation such as “Women are better cooks” or “Asians are good in STEM”. This may alienate some audience members. The Linguistic Society has a great set of guidelines for inclusive language. 

Finally, consider making your slides available in other formats. While accessibility in PowerPoint is rather great, converting your slides to another format such as PDF, HTML, mp3 audio, or another type of word processing document is another great step for ensuring that more people can access your content after a live delivery.

To Conclude: Go for an ADA Compliant PowerPoint Template 

Designing accessible presentations requires some effort. Making your presentations accessible means you’re considering all disabilities. If you are not sure that you’ve got all the aspects of PowerPoint ADA compliance right, consider using a premade accessible template. Accessible PowerPoint templates are fully optimized for use by people with visual impairments and other types of special needs. By opting for such a solution, you won’t have to worry about the design intricacies and have more time to hone your delivery! 

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Create accessible PowerPoint presentations

Introduction.

In this section we will cover how to create accessible presentations using Microsoft PowerPoint and different ways of sharing them online.

Before you get started, please read the Accessibility Fundamentals page  first. Following that, here are some additional key points specific to PowerPoint:

• Slide format (size): for the standard slide format, your main body text should aim to be 28pt or bigger. For your widescreen slides, aim for a minimum of 32 point.
• Screen size used by your audience: the fonts recommended above work well on mobile devices because they display as very large. If you are presenting in a physical space, the size of the screen will also influence how readable the font sizes are for your audience.
• Room depth / distance from the screen: fonts should all appear very large from the back of the room you are presenting in.
• Templates: use an accessible PowerPoint template to build your presentation. Doing so will automatically make your presentations more accessible for you, because the text boxes will have a set reading order. If you create your own text boxes, you will need to ensure each slide has a unique title and you will need to amend the reading order for each slide. This ensures a screen reader can read the content aloud in a logical order for someone with a visual impairment.
• Background colours: choose an off-white background colour for your slides. Some people experience glare when viewing presentations with a white background.
• Design for mobile: always design your slides for accessing on small screens. When we design for mobile, we design for all screen sizes. Doing so means your slides can be easily accessed and read on mobile devices.

Use the PowerPoint Accessibility Checker

The Accessibility Checker is available in both PowerPoint Online and on Desktop. To access all features, open your presentation on your desktop / or laptop computer. To ensure that your presentation can be read by a diverse range of people, you should run the Accessibility Checker. This inspects your presentation for elements that would potentially cause problems for accessibility tools such as a screen reader. Errors, warnings and tips are displayed in the inspection results, along with information as to why and how to fix the issue. Whilst the Accessibility Checker is a really useful tool, it does not currently check all accessibility issues that are covered by the WCAG 2.1 AA standards.

Depending on the version of Office you are using, the Accessibility Checkers can be accessed either from the Review tab or the File tab.

How to access and use the Accessibility Checker is covered in the next section.

PowerPoint accessibility tutorials

Learn how to create more accessible PowerPoint presentations with training videos and online tutorials created by Microsoft:

• Access Create More Accessible PowerPoint Presentations training (support.office.com)
• How to make your PowerPoint presentations accessible for people with disabilities (support.office.com)
• Learn about the Accessibility Checker (support.office.com)
• Improve accessibility with the Accessibility Checker (support.office.com)
• PowerPoint tips and tricks (support.office.com)
• PowerPoint Accessibility Guide (templates.office.com) - please note advice and use of font sizes in the template on this page are below what is considered accessible for PowerPoint in the UK

Sharing your PowerPoint presentations

PowerPoint presentations can be shared internally with staff and student audiences via:

• Office 365 (via web browsers, mobile and desktop apps)
• Minerva Portal & VLE

Providing your presentations in PowerPoint format enables your audiences to re-format and annotate the content and therefore ensures they can fully engage with it. For example, if someone with a visual impairment requires a different background colour, they can modify it to meet their own needs.

However, we cannot assume all of our external audiences have access to Microsoft PowerPoint. So it’s important to take that into account. You may also need to provide the content in more than one format, if you want to increase the accessibility of your material.

1. Office 365

Sharing your PowerPoint presentations from OneDrive provides your audiences with options:

• PowerPoint presentations open in the browser, so this means file downloads are not forced onto people’s devices.
• PowerPoint files can be downloaded in both PowerPoint and PDF formats.

2. Minerva Portal & VLE

If you are involved in student education, you can upload your PowerPoint presentations directly to Minerva modules and organisations, for your students to access. PowerPoint presentations uploaded to Minerva, open in the browser.

• Learn more about uploading content to Minerva in A-Z staff guides (Minerva Support site)

Learn more about Microsoft PowerPoint

The IT Training Unit offer:

• Microsoft Office training for staff (IT website)
• Microsoft Office training for researchers (IT website)

Online courses are also available:

• E-learning from Microsoft (IT website)

Written by Kirsten Thompson and Jane Hetherington | Last updated 08/02/21

Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

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• Improve image accessibility in PowerPoint Video
• Use accessible colors and styles in slides Video
• Design slides for people with dyslexia Video
• Save a presentation in a different format Video
• Present inclusively Video

Present inclusively

Use the accessibility features in PowerPoint Live in Teams or Live Presentations in PowerPoint for the web to make sure everyone can follow and enjoy your presentation.

Use PowerPoint Live in Teams

If you're using Microsoft Teams, you can present your PowerPoint slides or follow a presentation with PowerPoint Live in Teams.

Present with PowerPoint Live in Teams

If you're a presenter in a Microsoft Teams meeting, you can start your presentation straight from the Microsoft Teams app. For more info, refer to  Share PowerPoint slides in a Teams meeting .

In the Microsoft Teams meeting, select Share .

Under the  PowerPoint Live section, select the PowerPoint file you want.

Follow a presentation with PowerPoint Live in Teams

When the presenter uses PowerPoint Live in Teams, the slides will appear in the meeting window. As a participant, to follow the presentation with ease, you can adjust the settings independently to suit your needs without disrupting anyone else during the presentation.

To more easily read the slides, you can view the slides in a high contrast mode or translate the slide content into another language.

All Microsoft Teams features such as live captions, sending live reactions, and the accessibility tools on your device such as your screen reader are also available to you.

Display live captions

Select More   on the toolbar at the top of the screen.

Select Turn on live captions .

Send live reactions

Select Reactions , and then select a reaction to send it.

View slides in a high contrast mode

Select (More actions) below the slide.

Select View slides in high contrast .

Translate slide content to another language

Select Translate slides , and then select the language you want. Screen readers automatically read the slides in the new language.

Use a screen reader to read a slide

The screen readers automatically announce the slide number and title when you're navigating through the slides. To learn how to hear the full slide content, refer to  Use a screen reader to attend a PowerPoint Live session in Microsoft Teams .

Use PowerPoint Live Presentations

If you're not using Microsoft Teams, you can use Live Presentations in PowerPoint for the web to share your content, or follow a presentation shared with Live Presentations from your device.

Present with PowerPoint Live Presentations

You and your audience can enjoy the PowerPoint Live Presentations accessibility features when you're not using Microsoft Teams for in-person, remote, or hybrid presentations. 

In PowerPoint for the web, select the Present drop-down arrow.

Select Present Live . A welcome screen appears where the participants can join with a secure link or QR code using their mobile devices, for example.

When you're ready to start your presentation, select Show slides .

Follow a presentation with PowerPoint Live Presentations

When the presenter uses Live Presentations, you can use the QR code or secure URL to join the presentation in the browser on your own device. As a participant, to follow the presentation with ease, you can adjust the settings independently to suit your needs without disrupting anyone else during the presentation.

You can enjoy the PowerPoint Live Presentations accessibility features when you're following a presentation on your device without Microsoft Teams. You can, for example, change the language of the live captions or, on a mobile device, pinch to zoom. You can also send a live reaction and evaluate the presentation.

The accessibility features on your device such as inverting colors and your screen reader are also available.

Join a presentation in PowerPoint Live Presentations 

When the presenter has shared the presentation link and QR code, do one of the following:

With your device camera, scan and select the presentation QR code.

To use the secure presentation link, type in the link URL in the browser address bar.

Change the live captions language

Select (Transcript language), and then select the language you want.

Pinch to zoom on a mobile device

To zoom in on the current slide, place two fingers on the screen and slide them apart.

Send a live reaction

Select (Send a reaction) and select the reaction you want.

Send feedback after the presentation

Select (More options) > Rate the presentation .

For each evaluation category, select the star rating you want. You can also type a comment to the presenter.

When you're done, select Submit .

Share PowerPoint slides in a Teams meeting

Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to people with disabilities

Present Live: Engage your audience with Live Presentations

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Making presentations & forms accessible.

Follow these how-to guides to make sure your multimedia, presentations, websites, and forms are accessible to everyone.

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CREATING ACCESSIBLE POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS

Get step-by-step instructions on how to create PowerPoint presentations that are accessible to everyone. PowerPoint is the tool most commonly used for creating presentations, and it has many features that will make your presentation accessible to all users.

Who benefits?

All users will benefit from accessible PowerPoint presentations; but users with visual, auditory, or mobility disabilities will specifically benefit.

How-To Guide: Accessible PowerPoint Presentations

Before you begin using this guide, review this Screen Reader Simulation video from the National Clearinghouse of Rehabilitation Training Materials (NCRTM) . This video shows an accurate depiction of what it’s like to use a screen reader with a presentation. Viewing this video will help you understand why order and structure are so important when creating a presentation.

Step 1. Use Built-in Slide Layouts

Built-in slide layouts have content placeholders (the boxes you use to type text) that automatically make sure that the reading order works for everyone.

Video: Apply or Change a Slide Layout

Step 2. Give Every Slide a Unique Title

• Creates order in your presentation.
• Allows screen reader users to easily navigate the presentation, and to know what slide they are on.
• Select the Title content placeholder and type in a title that is different from all other titles in your presentation.

Video: Unique Slide Titles

Step 3. Use Sufficient Color Contrast

• Using strong color contrast allows people with low vision to see your content easier.
• See Checking for Color Contrast for examples and tips on appropriate color contrast.
• To check contrast, use the WebAIM contrast checker .

Highest Contrast

Complementary colors (those opposite each other on the color wheel) provide the highest color contrast, making them ideal for text and graphics color.

Lowest Contrast

Analogous colors (those next to each other on the color wheel) provide the lowest contrast and should be avoided.

Step 4. Check Text Size and Alignment

• Use a larger size (18 pt+) sans serif font.
• Justified text is more difficult to read because of the extra space between words.
• Adjust the text and alignment by going to the Home tab and changing the font type, font size, and the alignment as needed.

Step 5. Use Meaningful Hyperlink Text

Screen readers scan for links, so informative link text is helpful.

Helpful hint: Use the title of the page as the linked text.

To add a hyperlink:

• Select the text or image.
• From the Insert tab, select Link.
• In the Insert Hyperlink box, paste the URL address in the “Address” box.

Video: Add a Hyperlink to a Slide

Step 6. Include Alt Text for Images

Add or edit alt text:

• Select an image, drawing, or graphic.
• Right click > Alt text .
• Enter a description.

Video: Improve Image Accessibility in PowerPoint

Step 7. Include Captioning for Audio

Closed captioning is also required for pre-recorded multimedia that contains audio. There are several ways to caption multimedia:

• How to Request Captioning from a Vendor
• Multimedia (See DIY Captioning Sections)

Step 8. Make Sure Videos are Accessible

If videos are used in your presentation, audio description (narration added to the soundtrack) will be required for any important visual details that are not verbally described in the video soundtrack.

Follow the instructions in Multimedia – Creating Accessible Videos to make sure your videos are accessible.

Step 9. Use Tables for Data Only

• Use tables for presenting data, not for changing the visual layout of the page.
• Include a header row (rather than starting with data in the first row) because screen readers automatically read the first row as a heading row.
• Screen readers also use header row information to identify rows and columns.
• Using tables and headers in PowerPoint can help you create an accessible table in your presentation.

Step 10. Check the Reading Order

Reading order is very important to those who use screen readers because it ensures that the user receives the information in the order you intended. PowerPoint automatically defaults to the order in which you insert boxes on your slide.

Use the instructions listed in Set the Reading Order of PowerPoint Slide Contents to help you set or rearrange the reading order of your slides.

CREATING ACCESSIBLE KEYNOTE PRESENTATIONS

Learn how to make your Keynote presentations as accessible as possible by using pre-designed themes; formatting master slides and styles; adding alt text to images, charts, and graphs; and creating unique titles for each slide.

Why is it important?

Accessible presentations are about ensuring readability, usability, and navigability for everyone. The right delivery will ensure participants gain the most possible out of the presentation.

Viewers who use a screen reader and those with mobility impairment will benefit the most from an accessible Keynote presentation. However, a presentation’s accessibility can also benefit hearing-impaired users and those with vision impairments, such as color blindness, that don’t require a screen reader.

How-To Guide: Accessible Keynote Presentations

Step 1. choose accessible theme.

Choose from pre-defined themes rather than creating your own. If you purchase or download additional themes, request accessibility information from the designers.

Make sure you select a theme that has good contrast and does not contain busy backgrounds, which make text difficult to read.

Step 2. Set Language

Set the language for screen readers to read the presentation.

Choose Language & Region from the File > Advanced menu. Choose the language for the presentation.

Step 3. Slide Layouts

Use pre-defined slide layouts rather than creating your own.

Click Add Slide and choose an appropriate layout from the drop-down list.

Step 4. Master Slides

If you want to customize slides, including font and size, colors, etc. make changes to the Master Slides rather than to individual slides.

Click View and Edit Master Slides . Click Edit Master Slides from the dialogue box.

Choose the slide layout you want to edit, and use Keynote’s formatting tools to edit the slide. If you edit text formats and want all text of that type to have the new format, click Update next to the style name.

Step 5. Titles

Use a unique title for each slide. This is easy to see in Outline View.

From the toolbar, click View and then Outline .

Body text should be included in the outline view too.

Step 6. Alt Text

Add Alt Text to each image, chart, or graph in your presentation.

Click on the image, click Format on the toolbar, then click Image . In the Description field, enter the alt text for the image.

Include extended descriptions on the slide itself.

Step 7. Tables

Make sure any tables you use are accessible.

Select the table. In the Format pane, click on Table . Indicate how many columns and rows contain headers in the table.

Step 8. Check Accessibility

Keynote does not have an accessibility checking feature. You could export it to another format (PowerPoint, PDF, HTML) and check its accessibility using PowerPoint’s accessibility checker, Acrobat’s accessibility checker, or the WebAIM Wave accessibility checker (HTML).

Choose Export To from the file menu and select the format you want to use to check the presentation’s accessibility.

Step 9. Other Accessibility Considerations

• Avoid animations and slide transitions. These are difficult for screen readers.
• Avoid automatic slide transitions. These are difficult for screen readers and other assistive technologies.
• Avoid using text boxes not pre-defined in the theme.
• Provide captions for videos included in a presentation.
• Use a color scheme with a sharp contrast between text and background.
• Make sure text is not too small, especially if the presentation will be displayed on a projector.
• Do not use color as the only way to convey information.

CREATING ACCESSIBLE microsoft forms

Learn how to make your Microsoft Forms as accessible as possible by using clear instructions, and styles, adding alt text to images, and using accessible themes.

Accessible forms are about ensuring readability, usability, and navigability for everyone. The right delivery will ensure all participants can navigate and complete them.

Everyone benefits from a clear, well-designed, organized, functional form. Having clear instructions, logical navigation between fields, and cues for required items helps avoid frustration and extra effort for everyone.

Step 1. Use Clear and Simple Language

Write questions and instructions in plain language. 

Avoid jargon and complex sentence structures. 

Provide clear instructions when completing the form.

Use the “Required” option when needed and clearly mark required fields. 

Step 2. Provide Alternative Text for Images

If your form includes images, provide descriptive alternative text (alt text) so screen readers can convey the information to visually impaired users.

Step 3. Use Accessible Themes and High Contrast

-Choose high-contrast themes to make text more readable for users with visual impairments. 

  Ensure that there is sufficient contrast between the text and background colors. 

Step 4. Ensure Keyboard Accessibility

Verify that all interactive elements (like buttons and input fields) can be navigated and activated using a keyboard.

Step 5. Include Descriptive Headings and Sections

Use headings and sections to organize the form content logically. This helps screen reader users navigate the form more efficiently.    

Step 6. Provide Text Equivalents for Multimedia Content

Ensure the tab order follows a logical sequence. 

   Use focus indicators to show which form field is active, aiding keyboard-only users. 

Step 7. Avoid Time Limits

If possible, avoid setting time limits on form completion. If necessary, provide options to extend the time limit or notify users before the time expires.

CREATING ACCESSIBLE HTML

Learn to create digital forms that all people can use by checking for instructions, cues, required form field settings, formatting requirements, and form navigation.

Without accessible forms, some users may be too frustrated or confused to complete the form or may fill it out incorrectly.

Creating Forms Using a Web-based App

Using a web-based app is a quick and easy way to create forms. This option allows you to be creative and have control over your form without performing some of the technical, behind-the-scenes work that makes the form function properly. You do not have to be a web developer to use a web-based app to create your form.

Creating Forms Using HTML Markup

If you need to create a form directly on a webpage, you’ll need to use HTML markup.

How-To Guide: Accessible HTML Forms

HTML forms are often seen on webpages (at UNCG WordPress and Canvas are most common). If you need to create a form for your webpage using HTML, you will need to follow the steps in this tutorial to ensure that your form is accessible.

Step 1. Organize Your Form Logically

Organize your form in a logical way, by grouping similar questions together and using headings for each section.

If a form is long, choose to spread it over multiple pages. Use a progress bar to indicate progress.

Whenever possible, include options to undo actions or allow the user to confirm their responses in case they make an error.

Step 2. Include Label Elements

If you are coding a form yourself, ensure every form field has a <label> element.

If you are using a tool like Qualtrics , these tools may include appropriate HTML markup.

Example: HTML Labels

<div>

<label for=”last_name”>Last name:</label>

</div>

Step 3. Use Help Text

Use help text, which can help users know what is being asked and specify a format.

Example: HTML for Help Text

<label for=”Time”>Time</label>

<input type=”text” name=”Time Spent” id=”Time” aria-describedby=”Time-help”>

<span id=”Time-help”>Use decimals instead of time. Example: .25 means 15 minutes, .5 means 30 minutes.</span>

Step 4. Buttons

For groups of related fields such as radio buttons or checkboxes, use a <fieldset> element to group them together and a <legend> element to describe them.

Again, tools like Qualtrics may include appropriate HTML markup.

Example: HTML for Buttons

<fieldset>

<legend>Favorite color?</legend>

<input type=”radio” name=”color” value=”Red” id=”color_red”>

<label for=”color_red”>Red</label>

<input type=”radio” name=”color” value=”Green” id=”color_green”>

<label for=”color_green”>Green</label>

<input type=”radio” name=”color” value=”Blue” id=”color_blue”>

<label for=”color_blue”>Blue</label>

</fieldset>

Step 5. Indicate Required Elements

Indicate required elements with the word “required” or a common symbol such as an asterisk.

Never use color alone for emphasis, such as using only red.

Example: HTML for Required Element

<label for=”name”>Name (required): </label>

<input type=”text” name=”name” id=”name” required aria-required=”true”>

Step 6. Linear Order

Check the linear order of items on the page by tabbing through the items or by using an accessibility checker tool.

Because some people only use a keyboard, ensure all items can be accessed with tabbing or arrow keys, without a mouse.

A recommended tool is the WebAIM WAVE accessibility tool .

Step 7. What to Avoid

• Avoid reset buttons , which can be accidentally selected.
• Avoid CAPTCHA form fields , which are often used to validate if a human is completing the form rather than a bot.
• Avoid using images as buttons . If using them, add alt text.
• Avoid using multiple select menus , which may require users to use Ctrl/Cmd or Shift+Click to select items.
• Avoid jump menus , which may not work in all browsers and may trap users in the menu until they select an option.
• Avoid time limits .

CREATING ACCESSIBLE QUALTRICS FORMS

Qualtrics is another option for creating forms. It also collects and reviews data and has many useful reporting features. Qualtrics has advanced questions, analysis, and reporting features. It can be used for surveys, registrations, quizzes, evaluations, ticketing/request forms, etc. To be fully accessible to all users, several steps must be incorporated in the design of your Qualtrics form.

How-To Guide: Accessible Qualtrics Forms

Step 1. use an accessible theme.

Selecting a theme from the Qualtrics Library will help ensure your form’s theme is accessible to all users.

• Click the Library button. (This defaults to your My Library folder.)
• Click the drop down for your default folder (upper left corner) and select Qualtrics Library .

Step 2. Choose Accessible Question Types

Some question types are more accessible than others.

Step 3. Organize Your Form

If the form is long, choose to spread the forms over multiple pages. Use a progress bar to indicate progress.

Include options to undo actions or allow user to confirm their responses in case a user has made an error.

Step 4. Use Auto-Number Feature

Use Auto-Number feature to number your form to help users navigate through your form and keep track of the questions.

• Select Tools from the Survey tab.
• Choose Auto-Number Questions .
• Optional: Change the prefix from Q to something else.

Step 5. Change Default Survey Title

Changing the default survey title gives the user more information about the form and makes it easier to identify. This text appears in the browser as the window or tab title.

• Navigate to the Survey tab and open Survey Options .
• Enter a new Survey Title and press the Save button.

Step 6. Insert Accessible Header

Adding an accessible header to your form lets you insert content at the top of each page. The header is typically used as the form’s title and/or logo.

• Navigate to the Survey tab and open the Look and Feel menu.
• Click the General tab and then click Edit underneath the Header box.
• Here’s an example: <h1>Test Form 1/4/18</h1>
• Click Save.

Step 7. Add Alt Text

You must include alt text for any images on your form.

• Insert image into the Rich Content Editor and right click on the image.
• Select Image Properties .
• Enter a short description of your image.

Step 8. Change Default Navigation Buttons

By default, the Next and Previous buttons appear as “>>” and “<<” to indicate arrows. Changing these to text will help those who use screen readers.

• Go to the Survey tab and open Look & Feel .
• Click the General tab and go to the Next Button Text box; replace arrows with text (e.g., Next).
• Do the same for the Previous Button Text box (replace arrows with Back).

Step 9. Use Checking Survey Feature

This feature checks for inaccessible issues and gives recommendations on how to fix them.

• From the Survey tab, click Tools/Review/Check Survey Accessibility .
• Review the list of problems and recommendations.
• Click directly on a recommendation to jump to its location in the survey; make the suggested changes.
• Click Done and move to the next issue.

Tips for Delivering an Accessible Presentation

When you deliver a presentation at a conference, in an academic class, at a meeting, or online, you want everyone in attendance to understand the points you are making. However, many presenters unintentionally erect barriers for some attendees. Listed below are a few examples.

The presenter says, “I’m sure you can see the humor in this cartoon” without describing the visual content. If an attendee cannot see the cartoon (perhaps because they are blind or have low vision, sitting in the back row of a large room, or calling into the presentation by phone), they miss the point altogether.

The presenter says, “Look at how this graph indicates…” without describing the graph, again erecting a barrier for those who cannot see the image.

The presenter puts a huge amount of text on the screen and talks generally about it, making it impossible for any attendees to both read the content and listen to the speaker.

The presenter shows a video without captions, making it difficult to understand for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing or whose first language is not the one the video is presented in or who are unfamiliar with the vocabulary used in the video.

To avoid situations like these, it is important for a presenter to remember that members in the audience may have a wide variety of characteristics with respect to gender, ethnicity, race, marital status, age, communication skills, learning styles and abilities, interests, physical abilities, sensory abilities, socioeconomic status, and religious beliefs. Since the speaker is not likely to know specific characteristics of participants, it makes sense to be proactive and design a presentation that will be accessible to anyone—or, at least almost everyone—without the need for accommodations.

But what does “accessible” mean? The U.S. Office of Civil Rights and Department of Justice define “accessible” to be when “a person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally effective and integrated manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use. The person with a disability must be able to obtain the information as fully, equally, and independently as a person without a disability.”

Presentations that are accessible to people with disabilities benefit many others as well, including people whose primary language is not the language used in the presentation, people with different learning preferences, people who call into a presentation without access to the visuals, and those sitting in the back row of a large room.

I created eighteen guidelines that I follow as I develop and deliver my own presentations both on-site and online. Although they do not address every potential accessibility issue, they provide a good start for others who wish to make their presentations accessible.

For on-site presentations, follow these specific recommendations:

• Ensure the facility and presentation area is accessible to all potential speakers and participants, including those with mobility impairments.
• Arrange the room so that everyone has good visibility to the speaker and visuals, including sign language interpreters and real time captioning.
• Avoid looking back at projected materials; instead have a computer screen in front of you to glance at so that your voice projects toward your audience and your lips can be read by lip readers.
• Use a microphone when possible to project your speech; have audience members use a microphone or repeat questions they ask.

For online presentations, follow these specific recommendations:

• Use IT that is accessibly designed (e.g., can be operated with screen readers and other assistive technology, supports captions).
• Share relevant accessibility information with participants before the presentation.

For both on-site and online presentations, follow these specific recommendations:

• Provide multiple ways to learn, such as lectures, group discussions, question and answer sessions, hands-on activities, handouts, and references to resources.
• Provide attendees materials (ideally, ahead of time) and in an accessible format (e.g., use text-based formats with structured headings and text descriptions of images); also give sign language interpreters and real time captioners materials in advance.
• Use large, sans serif, bold fonts and simply designed visuals on uncluttered pages with plain backgrounds.
• Speak the essential content of visual materials, but avoid reading text word-for-word unless it is a quotation.
• Use clear, consistent layouts and organization schemes.
• Use color combinations that are high contrast and can be distinguished by those who are colorblind.
• Make examples relevant to learners with a wide variety of interests and backgrounds.
• Spell acronyms and avoid or define terms, jargon, and idioms.
• Speak clearly; avoid speaking too fast, which is particularly helpful to individuals whose primary language is not the one in which you are speaking, sign language interpreters, and real time captioners.
• Summarize major points, give background and contextual information, display key terms and concepts visually, offer outlines and other scaffolding tools to help participants learn.
• Give attendees time to process information; pause between topics and after you ask for questions.
• Use videos that are captioned; if they are not audio described, speak key content such as the title at the beginning and credits at the end; consider sharing a summary of the content of a video before it is presented.

Keep in mind that making your presentation accessible to participants with disabilities will make it more useful for everyone. This is a benefit of “universal design.” For information about other applications of universal design, consult the Center for Universal Design in Education , as well as the book Universal Design in Higher Education: From Principles to Practice, second edition published by Harvard Education Press.

About DO-IT

DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology) serves to increase the successful participation of individuals with disabilities in challenging academic programs and careers, such as those in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Copyright © 2020, 2019, 2017, University of Washington. Permission is granted to copy these materials for educational, noncommercial purposes provided the source is acknowledged.

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How To Make MS PowerPoint Presentations More Accessible

PowerPoint presentations can be an excellent way to present your ideas to your intended audience. Given the fact that more than 12 million people in the US have some kind of visual impairment, chances are some of your intended audiences might be visually impaired and may rely on assistive technology to access your presentations. 

Considering this possibility, it makes sense for you to create presentations that everyone, including individuals with disabilities can easily access. Here are 12 tips to make your PowerPoint presentations more accessible. 

Name all of your slides

Provide unique titles to all the slides in your presentation so that people who use assistive technology can navigate the document easily. Make sure the titles are descriptive enough that people can discern between slides. 

Organize your slides in the proper order

It’s crucial to organize your slides in a logical reading order so that screen reading tools can read them in the order they are meant to be. You can use the Reading Order pane in the Accessibility Checker tool to organize your slides and set the reading order. 

Add alternative text to visuals  

Incorporating multimedia elements – especially visuals – can make your presentations look appealing. At the same time, visual elements can be hard to understand for those who use screen readers and text-to-speech tools to access your documents. To avoid this problem, add alternative text or text descriptions for all meaningful visual content, including photos, stock images, charts, and infographics.

Make your videos more accessible

If your presentation contains videos, you must make them accessible to an audience with diverse accessibility needs. Include an audio track with video descriptions and subtitles or closed captions to make your videos more accessible. 

Make sure fonts are easily readable  

Use widely available sans serif fonts like Calibri andArial. Do not use fancy or novelty fonts that can be hard to read. Do not use italics, underlines, text-shadow, or other effects, except in cases where it is necessary. 

While there is no ideal font size for PowerPoint presentations, it should not be smaller than 18 points, regardless of other factors. 

Pay attention to the contrast ratio

The contrast ratio between the foreground and background color can impact the accessibility of your presentation, which is why you should be careful about the colors you choose. 

Ideally, you should use near black or any other dark color for your text and an off-white or cream-colored background. You can use the Accessibility Checker tool to determine if the contrast ratio is sufficient to make your presentation accessible. 

Avoid animations 

Avoid animations as much as possible, as they can be distracting for some people. More importantly, any visual content that moves rapidly or flashes, flickers, or blinks at a specific rate can induce seizure in people with photosensitive epilepsy. 

Avoid automatic slide transitions

Automatic slide transitions should be V, as they can disrupt the flow of your presentation and make it harder for some users to read the slide content. 

Minimize the amount of text in your slides

Adding too much text to your slides can affect readability. Ideally, you should follow the 6x7 rule – no more than six words per line and no more than seven lines of text per slide. And leave sufficient space between each line of text to keep content readable. 

Limit the number of slides

Limit the number of slides to the extent you can. Try to make your points as succinctly as possible. It can make your document more accessible for everyone – not just for people with disabilities. 

Avoid non-descriptive URLs

Don't use URLs, shortened URLs, or non-descriptive text like "click here" or "learn more," as they do not provide any information about the link to users, particularly those who use screen readers and text-to-speech tools. Make hyperlinks descriptive enough for the average user to read and understand, either by adding hyperlink text or by adding ScreenTips.  

Use the Accessibility Checker tool 

Use the Accessibility Checker tool to check for readability, legibility, and accessibility issues that can make it harder for people with disabilities to access your presentations.  

Final Word – Engage the entire audience 

As a presenter, your first goal should be to ensure the entire audience, including users with vision, hearing, motor, or cognitive impairments, are in a position to engage with and benefit from your content. Making your presentation more accessible using the tips and insights in this short guide will help achieve this goal.

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Advice for making events and presentations accessible

Accessibility means making sure there are no barriers that might prevent someone from accessing or using something.

Accessibility should be a part of everything we make and deliver. This includes events and presentations.

Events and presentations are a great way of showing new work, sharing learnings and helping people to build capability. So we need to make sure that no one is excluded from them.

If you’re running an event or giving a presentation, here are some things you can do to make sure they are as accessible as possible.

If you’re running an event

Before the event.

• check whether any attendees and speakers need anything to be able to participate in the event – you could add some text to the invitation or the registration page asking: “Is there anything we can do to enable you to be able to fully participate in this event?”
• check that the venue is accessible – it should be wheelchair accessible and any stairs may need rails
• consider live captioning – having live captioning can make sure people with hearing impairments can access the event; it will also mean you will have a transcript at the end of the event – live captions cost roughly £110 an hour
• make sure that the venue has a hearing loop and that you know how to connect the sound system to it
• check the hearing loop and make sure that the audience has joining details for it
• make sure that you can control and adjust the lighting if necessary
• make sure you have a second and even third microphone with runners for getting audience questions

Making things accessible for your speakers

Bear in mind that speakers might have accessibility requirements too. Here are some things to consider:

• any staging may need to be wheelchair accessible
• any steps may need rails
• lecterns and microphone stands should ideally be height-adjustable, and this should be easy to do as it may need to be switched between speakers

Making things accessible for remote audiences

If you have a remote audience dialling in to the event then you need to ensure that the event is accessible for them too. Here are some ways to do that:

• test the setup in advance and make sure there is internet connectivity
• make sure that the camera feed has both the speaker and the slides in shot, and make sure the speaker is not standing in the way of the slides
• consider sharing slides directly to the web feed – this will give the clearest view but of course will mean remote participants can’t see the speaker's face or gestures
• ensure remote participants can submit questions and take part fully in Q&As and feedback

If you’re giving a presentation

When you’re writing the presentation.

Make sure that your slides are clear and easy to read. At GDS, we’ve designed our slides template to be as accessible as possible. There are a few things to take into account:

• make sure there is a good contrast between text colours and background colours – our slides use black on a grey background or white on a dark blue background
• avoid white backgrounds because of glare – this is why we use a grey background for black text
• if you are using text over an image, make sure the image is dark enough to ensure contrast and simple enough not to distract from the text
• use large type sizes and keep the typeface simple – we use Helvetica Neue at 32pt or 63pt

Using videos

If you’re using a video as part of your presentation, there are a few things to think about to make sure it is as accessible as possible:

• ensure that all videos have captions – these should be clear and large enough to see from the back of a large room
• ensure that any visual content in the video is described in the audio – if it isn’t, then you should describe it to the audience yourself
• check video sound levels in the room before the live presentation

When you’re presenting

There are a few things to think about when you’re giving your presentation. This advice will help make your presentation more accessible. It will also make it easier for everyone in the audience to follow your presentation – whether or not they have access needs.

• if you’re using a hand-held microphone, keep it close to your mouth at all times – imagine you’re eating a rapidly melting ice-cream on a hot day
• if you’re using a fixed microphone, try to keep as near to it as possible, even when you’re addressing someone in the audience
• if you’re using images or video in your presentation to convey essential information, make sure you also explain that information verbally
• if you’re doing a Q&A with the audience, then make sure the venue has a spare microphone for questioners to use – if there is no microphone or if the questioner doesn’t speak clearly into it, then make sure you repeat the question into your microphone

Do you have any tips on making events and presentations accessible? Share them in the comments below.

Sharing and comments

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Comment by David posted on 16 March 2018

Alistair, good list, but you have ignored the communication needs of blind and deaf-blind participants. Just some thoughts for the inclusive age: * Provide indoor beacon bluetooth smart phone app navigation (i.e. Blindsquare), or offer human assistance for guiding. * Ensure pathways and halls are clear of wires and obstacles. * If possible provide a real time audio description channel (via bluetooth or wireless) for smart phone listening, or an audio channel to broadcast the speaker. * Ensure the realtime text captioning is screen reader accessible (iOS Voiceover and Android Talkback). * Provide a point of orientation for the speaker on the stage (podium or chair). * Ensure the presentation material is in a downloadable WCAG accessible digital format.

Comment by Suzanne Amos posted on 17 March 2018

Very useful checklist - thank you! Just need to get over my fear of public speaking first 🙂 and then buddy up with a colleague to help out with all the tech check aspects.

Comment by Aurora Betony posted on 06 April 2018

Many thanks for this blog post Alistair. I'd like to add to it 5 things you can do to make an oral presentation accessible to dyslexic people. 1. Cater for all learning styles. (This will help everyone, not only dyslexic people, because everyone learns differently). In other words, give your audience content to listen to (vary this by including some audio clips of other people's voices); look at (present information visually wherever possible e.g. timelines, sketchnote summary); and do (e.g. distribute your slides in advance so that people can bring a copy and add their own notes). If you can sing, sing a summary of the bit of your presentation that you most want people to take away with them. Use a tune you already know. 2. Generally, speak at a steady pace. Leave at least a few seconds' gap for processing at the ends of sections when you don't say or do anything. Vary the speed, volume and pitch of voice you use. 3. At the beginning of your presentation, give the gist of what you're going to say. 4. Dramatise some of your content e.g. tell stories about real or imaginary people, ideally that move your audience emotionally; or go into role and do a monologue or dialogue with others. You may be able to use video or audio clips that other people have made for this. 5. Let anyone make an audio recording of your presentation for their own personal use.

Comment by David Vosnacos posted on 11 May 2018

David, Good points. And here are some additional considerations I usually employ: * Orientate the audience to the position of the lectern by providing an orientation to the room using a clock face technique. Step off mic to give this exact location: the position of the sound system speakers often doesn't give this context. * Orientate the presenter to the layout of the actual lectern particular where the static microphone is located. * Conduct a roll call, using a series of roaming microphones, of all those in audience to orientate those present who else is in the room. (name badges aren't accessible to everyone) Typically this can take up to 5 minutes for an audience of up to 100 people. * If an audience member provides a specific lapel microphone ensure the presenter uses it. (for example some cochlear implants may not use any other means such as a loop or T switch configuration) Ideally though have this patched into the audio mixing desk so all audio is accessible: from the the presenter, their laptop etc. * Make sure all questions from the audience go through the roaming microphones: no exception.

Comment by Mike Hughes posted on 24 July 2018

Two things to add.

1) The myth of learning styles is slowly being debunked internationally but it's a long battle. The evidence suggests that whilst people have a preferred learning style that isn't necessarily the most productive process for them. Most people really do learn through simple bite-sized chunks; repetition and practical examples.

2) In terms of accessibility on the day of an event from a visually impaired perspective there is no mention of

a) signage. Venues need checking externally and internally and additional signage may need to be placed. Especially important in lobbies; dark corridors and so on.

b) directions. Making a venue accessible is all very well but if the details on how to get there include a poor, small, blurred map with no instructions on coming by car, public transport etc. then you've an instant barrier to attendance if people believe something is more difficult than it actually is. Initial materials need to be produced in an accessible format rather than requesting if people need that. Producing something in 16 point doesn't cost much more and can make a huge difference from the outset.

c) Nowadays there is considerable emphasis on Wi-Fi accessibility. This usually misses the point. Local Wi-Fi is usually bandwidth limited and not fit for purpose. More important is that a venue does not prevent access to 3G or 4G so people. A room which is a dead zone should simply not be used.

3) Disappointed to see the comment about text overlaying images. Please don't attempt to make it contrast well. You're doing a presentation and your concern should be for your audience not some stylistic foible. Text simply has no need to overlap images and presenters should be asked to make sure it doesn't.

Related content and links

Accessibility in government.

This is for everyone: documenting how we're rebuilding inclusive digital services across the UK Government. Find out more

How accessible is your website?

Public sector organisations have a legal duty to make websites accessible. Find out how your organisation is impacted at GOV.UK/accessibility-regulations  

GOV.UK service and product owners need to upload an   accessibility page and publishers need to upload an accessible documents policy .

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• Government Digital Service blog
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7 Steps to Make Your Virtual Presentations Accessible

With the rapid rise of telework, the PEAT team recognizes it’s more important than ever to make sure virtual presentations are accessible. These efforts allow all participants, particularly people with disabilities, to effectively engage with presented content. Below, you’ll find seven essential steps and related resources to help you create accessible presentations.

Before and During Your Presentation

Step 1: research.

Before hosting a virtual presentation, identify all accessibility features of the online platform you intend to use. The following articles provide guidance on this process.

4 Elements of an Accessible Meeting Platform

How to Pick an Accessible Virtual Meeting Platform 

Step 2: Need Sensing

When sending invitations to join your virtual presentation, encourage participants to share their requirements and accommodation needs to engage effectively in your event. For example, you could craft a request like this:

“We strive to host an inclusive and accessible presentation. Accessible materials will be distributed to participants in advance, and live captioning will be provided during the event. If you have questions about the accessibility of our presentation, or want to request accommodations, please reach out to [add name] at [add email].”

Step 3: Put Systems in Place

Before your live event starts, check off these critical to-do items first:

• Adjust your platform settings to record your presentation. Though this may not be specifically requested, it’s helpful for everyone to access content after the live event concludes.
• Arrange captioning for your presentation in advance. If possible, it’s a best practice to provide captioning by default.
• Secure sign language interpreters —if requested.
• Follow this checklist for an accessible virtual meeting

Step 4: Create and Share Accessible Materials

In advance of your presentation, create and share accessible slide decks and other presentation materials with the audience. Sending your materials ahead of time helps some people prepare, and ensures that participants have access to electronic versions in case they encounter accessibility issues during the live event. Consider these resources for creating accessible presentations and documents in Word (or another software application for word processing):

• How to Make Presentations Accessible to All
• PowerPoint Accessibility
• Best Practices for Making Word Documents Accessible
• Inclusive Design for Accessible Presentations

Step 5: Prepare Speaker(s)

For a presentation to be fully accessible, speakers must understand how to use key features of the online platform and convey content in a manner that promotes accessibility. Participants with certain disabilities can absorb information better and more effectively engage in presentations when the speaker(s) follows recommendations for accessible communication . We suggest conducting a preparatory or dry-run session with the presenters in advance to verify their familiarity and comfort with the run of show and platform controls (e.g., screen sharing, muting/unmuting audio, etc.).

After Your Presentation

Step 6: share materials.

After the event concludes, disseminate a recording of your presentation and the transcript to participants. This best practice enhances the accessibility of the information you shared and affords people with and without disabilities more opportunities to review and better understand the content you presented.

Step 7: Ask for Feedback

When sharing materials from your presentation, ask participants for feedback on the content of the presentation, its utility, and their experiences with the accessibility of your virtual event.

Additional Resources

• Find more resources for planning an accessible event in PEAT’s Telework & Accessibility Guide
• Watch a recording and access PowerPoint slides from this recent presentation: “ Creating and Hosting an Accessible Online Presentation ”
• Utilize additional tips for virtual meetings and presentations: “ Accessibility Tips for a Better Zoom/Virtual Meeting Experience ”
• Use PEAT’s Buy IT tool when evaluating a meeting platform for purchase

Note: GovLoop.com originally published a version of this article on April 1; it is reprinted with permission.

Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!

About the partnership on employment & accessible technology (peat).

Our mission is to foster collaborations that make emerging technologies accessible. To support workplaces in using inclusive technologies that engage the skills of employees with disabilities. To build a future that works. Click here to learn more about PEAT.

How to Apply Translate Feature in PowerPoint

In today’s interconnected world, the ability to communicate effectively across languages is more important than ever. Whether you’re presenting at an international conference, collaborating with global teams, or creating multilingual content for your audience, PowerPoint’s translation feature is a powerful tool that can bridge language gaps effortlessly.

Imagine you’re presenting a groundbreaking idea to a large audience and want to ensure everyone understands your message without language barriers. Or maybe you’re preparing a presentation to share with partners worldwide. In both cases, translating your slides can make your content more accessible.

This article will walk you through the step-by-step process of applying the translation feature in PowerPoint, helping you to break down language barriers and enhance the impact of your presentations. Let’s see how to apply this secret feature.

Step 1: Open Your Slide

Start by opening the PowerPoint presentation and navigating to the specific slide that contains the text you want to translate. Ensure that the text you wish to translate is visible and selected.

Step 2: Head Over to the Review Tab

Go to the “Review” tab on the ribbon at the top of your PowerPoint window. This tab contains various tools related to reviewing and editing your presentation.

Step 3: Select Translate

In the “Review” tab, find and click on the “Translate” button located in the Language section. This will open the translation options.

Step 4: Click on the Text Box You Want to Translate

Click on the text box or text area that you wish to translate. This action will highlight the text and make it ready for translation.

Step 5: Look Over to the Right Side of Your Screen

After selecting the text, look to the right side of your screen where the translation pane will appear. This pane will display translation options and a text box for your selected content.

Step 6: The Translator Window Will Appear

In the translation pane, you will see various language options. Choose the language you want to translate your text into by selecting from the dropdown menu.

Step 7: Click on Insert to Apply the Translation

After selecting your preferred language, click on “Insert.” This will automatically replace the original text with the translated text in the selected language.

Final Thoughts

PowerPoint’s translation feature is like having a personal translator for your slides. It helps you reach a global audience by turning your text into different languages with just a few clicks. Whether you’re presenting to an international crowd or sharing with friends around the world, this tool makes sure everyone understands your message.

So why not give it a shot? It’s an easy way to make your presentations more inclusive and keep everyone in the loop—no language barriers, no problem!

At SlideBazaar, we help you create engaging and memorable presentations. Choose from our collection of professional templates or opt for our custom design services for a personalized touch. Your presentations deserve to be elevated to new heights, and we’re here to help you achieve just that!

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Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

At michigan state university, user community focuses on the future of the field and fostering a diverse and equitable workforce.

The 2024 Low Energy Community Meeting (LECM) took place 7-9 August on the campus of the University of Tennessee Knoxville. LECM brings together members of the worldwide low-energy nuclear physics community to interact and discuss future plans, initiatives, and instruments. Over the course of the three days, 250 participants attended the meeting from 65 institutions and eight countries.

The LECM organizing committee includes representatives from FRIB, Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), the Association for Research at University Nuclear Accelerators (ARUNA), the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS), the Center for Nuclear Astrophysics across Messengers (CeNAM), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the FRIB Theory Alliance (FRIB-TA), and the FRIB Users Organization Executive Committee. FRIB hosted the meeting last year, and ORNL hosted this year. Texas A&M University will host next year.

LECM included plenary sessions, four working group sessions, and four workshops: Modular Neutron Array (MoNA) collaboration, Fission studies with rare isotope beams, early careers, and public engagement. 

The LECM plenary sessions featured presentations from the FRIB Achievement Awards for Early Career Researchers; a presentation on diversity and inclusion; Kairos Power’s Hermes demonstration reactor; and comments from representatives from the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation. The meeting highlighted the status at major user facilities—FRIB, ATLAS, and ARUNA.

The 2024 LECM affirmation and resolutions stated:

Affirmation: Our community affirms in the strongest possible terms its commitment to foster a diverse and equitable workforce and to support and respect diversity in all its forms. Individually and collectively we commit to ensuring an inclusive and accessible environment for all and taking action if these values are not being upheld.

Resolution 1: The highest priority for low-energy nuclear physics and nuclear astrophysics research is to maintain U.S. world leadership in nuclear science by capitalizing on recent investments. To this end, we strongly support: 

• Robust theoretical and experimental research programs and the development and retention of a diverse and equitable workforce; 
• The optimal operation of the FRIB and ATLAS national user facilities;
• Investments in the ARUNA facilities, and key national laboratory facilities; 
• The FRIB Theory Alliance and all its initiatives.

All are critical to fully realize the scientific potential of the field and foster future breakthroughs.

Resolution 2: The science case for an energy upgrade of FRIB to 400 MeV/u is compelling. FRIB400 greatly expands the opportunities in the field. We strongly endorse starting the upgrade during the upcoming Long Range Plan period to harness its significant discovery potential. We support instrument developments, including the FDS and ISLA, now that GRETA and HRS are underway. These community devices are important to realize the full scope of scientific opportunities

Resolution 3: Computing is essential to advance all fields of nuclear science. We strongly support enhancing opportunities in computational nuclear science to accelerate discoveries and maintain U.S. leadership by: 

• Strengthening programs and partnerships to ensure the efficient utilization of new high-performance computing (HPC) hardware and new capabilities and approaches offered by artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) and quantum computing (QC); 
• Establishing programs that support the education, training of, and professional pathways for a diverse and multidisciplinary workforce with cross-disciplinary collaborations in HPC, AI/ML, and QC; 
• Expanding access to dedicated hardware and resources for HPC and new emerging computational technologies, as well as capacity computing essential for many research efforts.

Resolution 4: Research centers are important for low-energy nuclear science. They facilitate strong national and international communications and collaborations across disciplines and across theory and experiment. Interdisciplinary centers are particularly essential for nuclear astrophysics to seize new scientific opportunities in this area. We strongly endorse a nuclear astrophysics center that builds on the success of JINA, fulfills this vital role, and propels innovation in the multi-messenger era.

Resolution 5: Nuclear data play an essential role in all facets of nuclear science. Access to reliable, complete and up-to-date nuclear structure and reaction data is crucial for the fundamental nuclear physics research enterprise, as well as for the successes of applied missions in the areas of defense and security, nuclear energy, space exploration, isotope production, and medical applications. It is thus imperative to maintain an effective US role in the stewardship of nuclear data. 

• We endorse support for the compilation, evaluation, dissemination and preservation of nuclear data and efforts to build a diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce that maintains reliable and up-to-date nuclear databases through national and international partnerships. 
• We recommend prioritizing opportunities that enhance the prompt availability and quality of nuclear data and its utility for propelling scientific progress in nuclear structure, reactions and astrophysics and other fundamental physics research programs.
• We endorse identifying interagency-supported crosscutting opportunities for nuclear data with other programs, that enrich the utility of nuclear data in both science and society.

The community also presented a statement on isotopes and applications:

Applied Nuclear Science offers many tangible benefits to the United States and to the world. The Low Energy Nuclear Physics Community recognizes the societal importance of applied research, and strongly encourages support for this exciting and growing field with funding and beam time allocations that enable critical discovery science that will improve our lives and make us all safer.

Rare isotopes are necessary for research and innovation and must be available.  

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