A Guide to Accessible Presentations

The primary purpose of any good presentation is to share knowledge and engage your audience with your ideas. To be successful in presenting you need to have appealing content, present it in a simple manner and know your audience.

Being mindful of people’s diversity in your presentation delivery will allow you to include every participant in the conversation that you are so eager to have.

Here is a curated accessibility guide to making sure that your next presentation is for everybody.

If you are a publisher, make sure to focus not only on your engaging content but also on the nitty-gritty details of the actual presentation deck. The good news is you can create a custom theme (template) using the Slide Master View in both Google Slides and Microsoft (MS) PowerPoint and utilize it as a starting point for your future decks.

Create a color scheme that will satisfy the following accessibility rules:

Apply a few basic rules for the text:

For the slides:

For your content:

For the visuals:

Remember, all people perceive information differently: provide a well-defined structure for the text, support it with the visuals, including tables, charts, and images, and keep it simple. And recognize that not all people will be able to see it, so it is very important that they will hear exactly what you intend to convey.

Creating a fully accessible presentation is a bit harder than most people are used to doing. However, it is very rewarding to know that you are opening an opportunity for many more people to access the information you want to share.

Okay, now you have your fully accessible slide deck and it is time to shine! When you speak, make sure that you speak clearly and slowly enough, with pauses when needed. It does not only help people with disabilities but makes it easier for anyone to follow your thoughts and perceive the information you tell.

Narrate the content as if you are talking over the phone or participating in a podcast. Yes, you have slides and slides are important, but some people just can’t see or comprehend them as you want them to on their own.

Be prepared to provide your slide deck ahead of time: HTML view (Google Slides only) and PDF format (MS PowerPoint only).

Here are some good practices when presenting:

Make sure that if your presentation is recorded and uploaded, let’s say to YouTube, it has custom captions as opposed to auto-generated ones.

If you run a conference, make sure that you convey the value of accessibility to all of the publishers and speakers. Learn about your audience and ask them if they need any assistance to be successful at your event. Though people might not want to disclose their disability status, proactively create an accessible experience for everyone if you do value equity and inclusion. Focus on the technology that you are going to use and find out its capabilities and limitations. Hire professionals to help with accessibility. And communicate!

Here are a few good practices to follow:

And make sure that your speakers:

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