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Re: PowerPoint Accessibility

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From: John E Brandt
Date: Sep 1, 2011 12:15PM

If you have MS Office 2010 (Windows) you can run the Accessibility Checker
(AC) on your file [File>Prepare for Sharing>Check for Issues>Check
Accessibility] - read http://tinyurl.com/4ytxzr4 for more information. The
AC will check to make sure you have "alt" text/descriptions for the images,
that each slide has a title (many people fail to do this), and will ask
about reading-order. You will probably want to avoid/remove animations and
don't use any embedded media (audio or video) in the slides themselves
(these should be sent/posted separately after making sure you have made them
accessible with captioning and transcripts). Each slide has to have a unique
name. If you have several slides designed to show continued information mark
them "Title name - 1", "Title Name - 2", etc. If there are just two, you can
title the "Title name" and "Title name - continued"

Other things to avoid:
- embedded tables (may not read well in screen readers)
- multiple columns (may mess up word/reading order)
- complex charts (very hard to include ALT description that will provide
enough information to make it meaningful)
- complex graphic created with symbols or free form shapes - like flow
charts (each piece/shape used requires an ALT description - in the final
form it won't make sense to screen reader users)
- use of URLs or e-mail addresses (The AC doesn't like these)

If you have made the MS Accessibility Checker happy (no errors), you can
probably convert it to Adobe Acrobat file (save as PDF). But then run that
file through the Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Checker (included in Adobe
Acrobat Pro) just to make sure.

I recently have been asked to make a small number of previously-created PPTs
accessible for one of my clients. What I found is that most people have no
idea how to create a useable PowerPoint (e.g., including too much verbiage,
poor construction of slides, bad layout, bloated graphics, etc.) let alone
making one that is accessible. For one of these projects, I ended up
extracting all of the information out of the PPT and creating a new
separate, accessible Word document.

If your goal is to create a presentation that will be archived and shared
publically, spend the money have the event video recorded, captioned and
posted with associated supporting documents, links, etc. Ideally, you would
share all of the documents, including an accessible version of your PPT with
the audience before the actual event so AT users can have a chance to view
the materials beforehand.

As in your case, if you have made a presentation and, after the fact, folks
want the PPT and materials, ideally you would offer to write up a summary of
your presentation and include copies of the supporting documents and
resources and not just give folks a copy of your PPT.

That's my opinion, we welcome yours!

~j

John E. Brandt
www.jebswebs.com
<EMAIL REMOVED>
207-622-7937
Augusta, Maine, USA