When creating your PowerPoint presentation, you have to ask yourself if you will be posting your file online. If you are, we suggest that you save your file in two ways. First, put your presentation together following the tips we provide here for making it as accessible as possible and save it. Second, go back into the file, make any additions with animations or slide transitions you’d like for your live presentation and save that as a separate file. Why? Because posting presentations online with animations and transitions makes it difficult for a screen reader to read the file. Every time something new pops on the slide, the reader will start over from the beginning or stop reading altogether.

Here are some guidelines for making a PowerPoint accessibly ready to be posted online:

• Use the built in slide layouts.
• Use the predefined slide templates.
• Refrain from adding text boxes.
• All slides should have a unique title.
• Use a SanSerif font no smaller than 24 pt.
• Use appropriate punctuation at the end of each bullet.
• Consider using textures instead of colors in graphs.
• Check your color contrast, view your presentation as grayscale.
• Do not include animations or slide transitions.
• Use meaningful links.
• Make sure images – including graphs and charts, have alt text.
• Check your reading order.

For more information, join us on Friday, February 12th at Noon in Osterlin 113 where we will be going over how to create accessible PowerPoint presentations.