Skip to Main Content
University of York Library
Library Subject Guides

Digital accessibility: a Practical Guide

Accessible Presentations

A guide to digital accessibility.

Whether you're presenting for assignment, teaching, work presentation, job interview or at a conference, this page highlights accessibility for presentations. We have advice to help ensure your content and delivery - both online and in person - can be as accessible as possible.

Accessible slides

The majority of presentations we give are either based on or supported by slides. We've moved away from the old projectors but there are key principles in designing digital slides to help keep your presentation clear and coherent, as well as accessible. We've collected our top accessibility tips below, as well as given links to the sections of our Practical guide to presentations. 

Designing your slides

  • Be careful if you are overlaying text on an image or using images as backgrounds- this can reduce readability. Make sure you check the reading order, so someone accessing your slide with a screen reader will access content in the right order. More information about good overall design for slides is available on the Design page of the Presentations guide.
  • Think about the size of screen you will be presenting from and make sure you pick a large enough font - small text is an uncomfortable read- and make sure the bulk of your content is in a sans serif font. Avoid using a wide range of fonts across your slides as this can be confusing and look too busy. More information about good use of text and images in slides is available on the Content page of the Presentations guide.
  • If you are using animation, keep it simple. Too many effects can be distracting, and heavy use of animations, particularly if they involve flashing images, can induce migraine or even seizure in some people. More information about proper use of animations or other audio visual material in your slides is available on the Effects page of the Presentations guide.

Sharing your slides

  • Before you share your slides, make sure you use an accessibility checker. If you're using PowerPoint there is Microsoft's built in Accessibility checker; if you are using Google Slides, then the university subscribes to Grackle, an accessibility checker extension. Launch the checker to review your work - it will open a sidebar and list any issues that you may need to address.
  • Think about whether you need to share your slides ahead of your meeting/teaching session/conference session, good practice to share afterwards.
  • If you are sharing content on the VLE, the accessibility checker there will also give you an accessibility score for your materials. You won't be able to make changes directly in the VLE, you'll need to edit the slides in the program in which you created them, then re-upload. 
  • If you have a large slide deck and have used animations, gifs or other embedded content, consider one without these to create a more easily downloaded deck, making it easier for users to convert to another format or use offline as needed

Accessible presentation delivery

Presenting in person

  • Always use the microphone. Few people can project as well as they think they can! Even if you can rival Brian Blessed, you don't know who in the room may be relying on a hearing aid - if the room has a hearing loop, this will be linked to the microphone. If the only option is a fixed desk mic, be aware of this and try not to wander away from it too much, as this will lead to uneven audio output.
  • Check lighting - can your audience clearly see what you are presenting properly? Most lecture theatres at York have been built with lights to highlight the boards - if you are using the boards in your presentation, make sure these are on, so your work is well lit. However, if you are using slides projected to the screen, make sure these board lights are off, to minimise glare on screen and improve the clarity and contrast. Depending on the room and time of year, you may also need to consider if blinds need drawing to reduce glare on screen. 

 Presenting online

  • Make sure you enable the live captions in whichever video platform you are using, so participants have access to captions if needed.
  • If you are recording your session, you may want to edit the captions or transcript of the recording to ensure greater accuracy before sharing this. The Subtitles, captions and transcript page of our Media editing guide has more information on this. 
  • Be aware that you may lose view of speaker notes when screen sharing
  • A headset mic usually gives better audio clarity than relying on an inbuilt laptop or pc mic. 

Accessible presentations slides

Checklist

Here's a simple checklist you can use to cover the basics of making your slides accessible.

  • Alt text: Do images contain appropriate alt-text where needed?
  • Font type: Sans-serif fonts like Arial and Calibri are ideal for body text. Use decorative fonts sparingly.
  • Font size: Ensure font-size is appropriate for the space you are delivering in. Size 18 is the minimum size you should use for shared slides, but when presenting in larger spaces a higher size may be more appropriate.
  • Contrast/readability: For text on coloured backgrounds, a contrast checker such as WhoCanUse.com can help you to check for sufficient contrast and readibility. For text on top of images, use an offset image or a text box underneath to help make text clear.
  • Reading order: Does the order of your content make sense? Use the Selection Pane in PowerPoint, the Arrange tab in Google, or use the Tab key on your keyboard to cycle through content and check its order.
  • If nothing else use an accessibility checker to review your content (the Grackle extension in Google Slides, Check Accessibility in PowerPoint) 

Forthcoming training sessions

Forthcoming sessions on :

Taught students
Staff
Researchers
Show details & booking for these sessions

There's more training events at:

Feedback
X