</Accessibility guidelines for creating and giving presentations>

Measures taken to improve accessibility for people with specific needs usually benefit the wider population. We encourage the adaptation of mainstream activities and environments to be as encompassing as possible to as many people as possible, enabling disabled and non-disabled people to have similar experiences.

We have collated some tips for creating and giving an accessible presentation, so that our conference sessions are inclusive. Please take these into consideration when creating your presentation. If you have any questions or feedback, please email ioc@bath.ac.uk

Structure

• Include a unique title on each slide. People who are not able to view the slide often have software that uses slide titles for navigation and selection.
• Check the slide reading order. People who cannot view the slide will hear slide text, shapes and content read in a particular order.
• Check the accessibility of your PowerPoint presentation on the Microsoft website: https://bit.ly/36cVyVk

Text

• Ensure your font size is large enough – no smaller than 16pt.
• Use a sans serif font if possible – options include Arial, Verdana, Calibri or Helvetica. An example of a serif font to avoid is Times New Roman.
• Avoid using only block capitals, particularly for whole sentences.
• Align text to the left margin wherever possible.
• Avoid layering text over images, as this can make the text difficult to read.

Images and videos

• Wherever possible, add an alt text description to images in your presentation. This allows screen readers to identify the images if someone is viewing the presentation after the conference.
• If you are using audio or video components, please add a caption explaining what it will cover, and use subtitles.
• Avoid excess animation or flashing images/gifs/videos.

Colour

• Use high contrast colour schemes wherever possible. You can check the colour contrast of your colour scheme on this website: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
• If using text over a coloured background, making the text bold or increasing the font size will make it easier to read.
• Ensure that colour is not the only means of conveying information.