When you use MS PowerPoint to teach online you may be using it in a variety of ways. You may upload it into the LMS so that students view it as a slide presentation there. You may show it during a live video conferencing session. Neither of these options would be accessible to someone who needs to use assistive technology to read it. So it is important to create the presentation in a format that is available to share with those who will need to access it that way as well.
No matter the end product, there are several things that need to be considered as you create the presentation.
- Choose a design template that offers good contrast.
- Avoid starting with a blank slide and adding text boxes.
- Instead, choose the layout that fits your slide design.
- Avoid the “Design ideas” presented by PowerPoint. Some are accessible but many are not.
- Look at the “outline view” of the slide to see if the text on your slide is visible there.
- Describe images, charts and graphs with alternative text.
- Use sans serif fonts and make sure your text is 24-point or larger for online classes and 28-point or larger for face-to-face classes.
- Create an accessible PDF version of the PowerPoint for students to download. This version will be more accessible to screen reader users.