How To Make MS PowerPoint Presentations More Accessible

Published December 28, 2022

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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