Making presentations accessible

Naturally, we are very keen for your session to be accessible to all OZeWAI attendee, including people with disabilities.

For a presentation to be accessible, presenters should:

1. Be aware of the accessibility needs that your audience may have when presenting.
2. Ensure slides, handouts, and other electronic material for participants are accessible.

We encourage all presenters to share their presentation slides and handouts through the OZeWAI website prior to the event. This not only enable the audience to familiarise themselves with the topic but will also give attendees with disabilities the opportunity to follow your presentation using assistive technology on their personal computer if they chose.

Tips for accessible presentation delivery

When preparing for and delivering your session, remember the following:

• Speak clearly. Avoid speaking too fast.
• Use simple language that is clear and direct. Avoid cliché and unnecessary jargon.
• Use multiple communication methods for different learning styles, for example use a mixture of verbal communication and supporting pictures and diagrams.
• Read out all displayed text and describe other visual information.

Creating accessible presentation materials

Presenters are encouraged to make their presentation slides accessible to people with disabilities. When creating your presentation, refer to the desk reference guides produced by the Inclusive Design Research Centre. These guides have step-by-step instructions that will help you create accessible presentations and documents using different desktop publishing software like Microsoft Office,Google docs, iWork and OpenOffice.

Here are a few tips for making your presentation slides accessible:

• Use the slide layouts correctly to ensure that your files have correctly-structured headings and lists, proper reading order, etc.
• Provide alternative text for images that can be read by a screen reader in a PowerPoint file.
• Create meaningful hyperlinks in your presentation
• Avoid poor contrast between background and text