When creating a PowerPoint, it won’t matter how I format it, as long as it looks nice, right?
No, and here’s why.
When creating a PowerPoint presentation, you need to use the slide layout templates as opposed to just adding text boxes when formatting and adding your content. A text box is treated like an image and won’t always be read by assistive technology, and if it is, it may not be read in the correct order.
For presentations you are posting online stay away from using transitions in the text. For example, text doesn’t appear on screen until you click the mouse. In this case, when the slide first appears, the screen reader will start reading it, however, as soon as you click the mouse, it will stop. The person “reading” the slide, at this point, may not know there is content there or that they need to keep clicking to get to the next slide.
Helpful tips to remember:
- Use proper slide layouts to add text and other elements – this ensures a correct heading structure, proper lists, correct reading order, etc.
- Use the accessibility checker.
- Don’t repeat titles and headings.
- Avoid using text boxes – these may not be recognized or if they are, may not be read in the order intended.
- Minimize the use of text and slide transitions.
For more information follow this link on formatting your PowerPoint presentation.
This week’s video will show you an example of a screen reader reading a PowerPoint. In the first part you will notice that the text is not read in the proper order, graphics have no descriptions or alt tags, and scans of text are used.
The second part of the video shows the same PowerPoint after it has been reformatted properly. Notice that it is read in proper order, there are descriptions to graphics, and information is now typed rather than placed as a scanned image.
Bear with the video and see it through, it helps to “see” and “hear” how simple formatting makes a difference.