Accessible and Inclusive Slides

Yesterday I facilitated two workshops on Accessible and Inclusive Slides. This was part of the Tutor Engagement Day at UCEM.

This was the first time I did the same workshop twice online and in-person on the same day. In the workshop, I provided a set of slides infested with accessibility and inclusivity issues and we explored how we can make them accessible and inclusive. I used breakout rooms and polls in the online session (with the help of my colleague Caroline) and group work and asked for responses in-person. Both sessions went very well and the discussion following them was rich and made me go and search for more information, which showed that I learned from the experience too.

So what did we discuss? We looked at common accessibility issues:

  • colour contrast
  • differentiation by colour
  • images of text
  • slide titles
  • screenshots of tables
  • font, font size, justification, and case
  • ALT text (Alternative text) for images
  • audio/video and transcript/captions
  • not using videos with flashing
  • links

We looked at tools that help identify such issues:

We also looked at ways to make presentations more inclusive:

  • inclusive language
  • inclusive names, examples
  • inclusive images
  • inclusive links that can be accessed by our international students (for example some YouTube links cannot be accessed from certain countries)
  • defining acronyms and technical terms
  • providing slides before a session

We also discussed other good practice such as using copyright free images and giving references.

Discussion following the session was very rich and a participant shared their experience of a student with photosensitive epilepsy informing them of moire effect and how some images are difficult for them to view. I also learned that webcam under tube light can also be difficult for people with photosensitive epilepsy.

We then looked at how we can write abbreviations in ALT text as the screen readers will not differentiate them. I found this Penn State University guideline about abbreviations where they suggest adding spaces between characters. For example, instead of WCAG writing W C A G to denote the abbreviation for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines if this was to be included in an ALT text.

I look forward to facilitating the next Accessibility session on Accessible Colour next week.