How to make your presentation accessible

“No thanks. I have a loud voice.”

Similar responses are sometimes heard at conferences when speakers are asked to use a mic. It is important to remember, however, that there may well be listeners in the room who have hearing loss and who need the support of the mic in order to participate in the session.

EERA would therefore like to strongly encourage all presenters and speakers to use a mic (when a mic is available). If there is no second mic for questions and discussion, we ask the person with the mic to please repeat the question or comment before responding.

Here is ashort video with captions from the organisation “Rooted in Rights”. From their website: “In the video, Evelyn, Devin, and Jayesh share their experiences with hearing loss and feeling excluded when accessible equipment like microphones are absent.  All speaking participants in the video have first hand experience with hearing loss and encountering non-hearing friendly environments.”

Guidance from UCL on how to make your presentation more accessible covers the following topics: Text and Data (Structure, Formatting, Links, Wording, Tables), Visual content (Use of colour, Labelling (alt text), Text in images), Audio and Video.

From the UCL website: “The use of images, graphics and colours can enhance the appeal of online and printed materials and assist communication – but they also introduce some accessibility challenges.”

An excerpt from the guidelines: "It is common to give a presentation at a conference with accompanying visuals. But what if there are individuals in the audience who are blind, have low vision, or are at a great distance from the screen so that they cannot see the visuals clearly or at all? What if there are individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing in the audience and cannot hear your presentation clearly or at all? You can employ presentation practices that ensure that everyone, even those with sensory impairments, can access the content of your presentation."

Follow this link to the University of Washington website for more details.

Follow this link to find guidelines on how to make the use of PowerPoint and other visual presentations accessible to audience members who have a vision or print impairment.

An excerpt from the guidelines: "These guidelines offer you some simple guidance on how to maximise your impact by ensuring that your presentation, and your delivery technique, is as accessible as possible to all your audience members. They contain both practical information and good-practice guidance."

Published by the World Blind Union.

An excerpt from the article: “Out of all of the presentation software out there, PowerPoint is by far the most used in all of my  classes. It’s not difficult to see why- it’s easy to use, supported across many devices, and internationally recognized. However, there are some people who don’t know how to make PowerPoint accessible for users with disabilities, and that’s why I have written this post. I chose to use the word “create” in the title, since accessibility is too often viewed as an afterthought, when it really should be considered from the start. Here are ten ways to make sure PowerPoint Presentations are accessible to those with disabilities.”

Follow this link to the Perkins School for the Blind website to view the article.

From Microsoft support: “Before you send an Outlook email message or share a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint presentation, or OneNote notebook, run the Accessibility Checker to make your content easier for people with disabilities to read and edit.