Deliver Accessible Presentations Course and Transcript

Video Transcript

Welcome to Develop and Deliver Accessible Presentations, part 2, Delivering Accessible Presentation. My name is Kristina England. I am the Digital Accessibility Specialist at the President's Office. And I'll be facilitating this training. Slide 2. Now let's go over the training agenda.

Here are the topics we'll discuss. Why inclusive presentations matter. Accessibility best practices prior to your presentation. Accessibility best practices during your presentation. Accessibility best practices after your presentation. And, finally, leveraging the Accessible Presentations Checklist.

Slide 3, why inclusive presentations matter. Slide 4, inaccessible presentations will exclude, or even do harm to disabled people. One in four Americans have a disability. When we present without accessibility in mind, here are some of the barriers that will arise. The deafblind, blind, and low vision community cannot follow along without a copy of the presentation in a format that meets their access needs, whether an accessible presentation, large print format, or Braille.

In addition, the deafblind, blind, and low vision communities will not be able to follow a visual-based presentation if there are no visual descriptions provided. The deafblind, deaf, hard of hearing, and neurodivergent communities will not be able to follow along if the effective communication they rely on is not provided, whether that's captions, a transcript, or sign language.

And the final example is, the epilepsy, vestibular disorder, and motion sensitivity community can have health issues triggered if you do not provide warnings ahead of animations. Slide 5, virtual versus in-person format matters when including disabled attendees. Format considerations are essential to inclusion. In-person presentations can be inaccessible, even if you pick an accessible venue.

Here are three examples why. Some disabled employees will need to rely on public transportation. The cost of transportation, reliability, et cetera, could prevent a disabled employee from attending an in-person presentation. A real-life example of this is that the blind community and the wheelchair community can actually have an Uber or Lyft show up, and then decline them a ride from a transportation reliability perspective. And then they have to try again with another Uber or Lyft to see if that person will take them.

Example 2. If a disabled employee is chronically ill, they can be put at risk by attending an in-person presentation. Example 3, neurodivergent employees with auditory processing disorder can prefer virtual attendance, as in-person distractions are removed. And there is easy access to a transcript when using Zoom. So, remember, with today's technology, the best option is to provide hybrid meetings and events, both virtual and in-person attendance. Always give a person the choice between both.

Slide 6. The next two slides will be examples of lived experience where disabled people ran into issues going to in-person events or meetings. The first one's about lived experience of travel reliability. An excerpt from the 2023 ABC News article, data shows about half of calls for wheelchair ride shares go unanswered, stranding disabled users.

LuTillion Maxon recalls the day she dared to go out to a movie, waited three hours, she said. People at the movie theater kept coming, like, are you OK? Maxon needs a wheelchair to get around. So she got to the movies that afternoon in an Uber WAV, a wheelchair-accessible vehicle. The drop-off was fine. The problem was getting home.

It kept saying, no vehicles available, no vehicles available, she said. While regular Ubers picked up passengers in minutes, Maxon waited with her mom in the lobby for hours. Daylight faded. The staff offered help. Is there anything we can do? Are you OK? Everybody was wondering. What's going to happen? Never got a vehicle, Maxon said.

Slide 7. The next example is the lived experience perspective on asking for virtual attendance. This quote is from Debra Guckenheimer. She's a PhD, teacher, writer, and sociologist. I do have a picture of Debra here. She has short, curly hair, light skin. She's smiling and wearing a dark navy shirt. Debra says, I can't attend most events in-person because of my disability. And I'm not alone. I've lost out on career opportunities, including work meetings and conferences.

I've lost out on opportunities for personal growth and connection. I've had to drop out of school committees and be less involved in my kids' school because I couldn't physically attend meetings in person. I've pushed myself to participate in some meetings and events that have caused long term damage to my physical health. When I ask and am refused the option to participate virtually, I get the message that neither I, nor accessibility, are important to the event organizers.

Slide 8. Before we wrap up the slides on in-person versus virtual events, I wanted to share the 2024 survey by Fable Tech Labs of the accessibility of online events. I have a bar chart here called Online Events. And the chart description says, 0% of survey respondents found online events to be less accessible.

11% said the accessibility of online events was about the same. 49% said they were a little bit more accessible. And 40% of disabled people said online events were much more accessible than in-person events. The source of this is linked to, and I'm going to provide it within the learning path. And the source is called the Accessibility of Online Events, A Retrospective.

Slide 9. Now let's talk about accessibility best practices prior to your presentation. Slide 10. Ensure your meeting or event communications are accessible. When creating your event announcement, ensure the announcement follows email accessibility best practices by leveraging our email accessibility checklist on the Inclusive by Design website. Always provide meeting materials, including the agenda, ahead of time, and ensure meeting materials are accessible.

Finally, when building an event registration form, ensure you are using a form tool that has been tested and validated by your campus accessibility team. Slide 11. Provide attendees with accessibility information in your communication. Let attendees know about any services that are provided by default, such as captioning, transcripts, a sensory room, et cetera.

Ask all attendees if anyone needs an accommodation. Attendees may need the following accommodations. Alternative formats, such as large print, Braille, plain text format, et cetera. Effective communication, such as captions, transcripts, sign language, et cetera. And, finally, in-person accommodations, for example, dietary restrictions, accessible seating, clearly visible space for sign language interpreters and live captions, et cetera.

Don't forget to contact your ADA coordinator. They can provide you the standard accommodation request language and can help with any requested accommodations. Slide 12. Now let's talk about accessibility best practices during your presentation. Slide 13. Inform all attendees of effective communication options. Provide all attendees with the following information at the beginning of the meeting or event.

How to access closed captions in the transcript. Whether a sign language interpreter will be available. Provide a link to the presentation materials in the virtual chat. Even though you sent them out ahead of time, it's best practice to also include a link to the materials. If presenting in-person, please make sure to shorten the link so it's easy to read out to participants.

And finally, animation warnings. If you plan to use any animations, let people know there will be animations during the presentation, and that you will warn them about those animations when they are about to be displayed. Slide 14. You also want to provide attendees with instructions about how to ask questions. Before kicking off your presentation, provide clear instructions on how attendees can ask questions. For virtual attendees, let them know how they can submit questions.

You should always provide a way to submit the question non-verbally through chat, or in a question and answer function. Do not rely on folks unmuting to ask a question. And for in-person attendees, always emphasize that they should use a microphone to ask a question so that the question is captured in both the recording and captions, and so that anyone that is hard of hearing can hear them.

Slide 15. You should also use PowerPoint Live if possible when presenting. If you open your presentation in PowerPoint online through Outlook, OneDrive, or Teams, you can use PowerPoint Live option to share the presentation live with attendees. You cannot do this when opening it in Dropbox. This feature allows attendees to follow along on their own device, which benefits assistive technology users.

You can reference the Present inclusively with PowerPoint article for step by step instructions on how to use PowerPoint Live. This article will be included in the learning path. Slide 16. When presenting, always describe images and visual contents. Whether you're demoing a product or reviewing a chart, it's important to provide visual descriptions of the content for the blind and low vision community. The visual descriptions should convey everything the person would miss if they can't see the content.

In addition, people who are attending via mobile device in their car benefit from the same visual descriptions. Also, avoid using the word, click, and use the word select when talking about activating buttons, links, and other interactive elements. Not everyone clicks. So select is a broader term that covers screen reader and keyboard navigation.

Slide 17. Now let's go over a visual description example of the HR Direct home page. I have a screenshot on this slide of employee self-service on the home page with the titles. My presenter description that I would provide to attendees is the following. I am on the employee self-service home page. I have six tiles currently visible, Payroll, Direct Deposit, W-2, W-2c Consent, View W-2, W-2c Forms, Personal Details, and M-4 MA State Tax Information.

I need to get to the Time tile, which is currently not visible, as it is below the fold in the last tile on the page. So I will navigate past the other tiles to access the Time tile. Slide 19. Here are some additional important accessible presentation best practices. The first one, which I've been doing throughout this presentation, is let everyone know which slide or page you are on.

For example, say slide 19 when you transition to slide 19, so anyone following along with assistive technology knows where you are. I'm going to include a copy of this presentation in with the actual learning path, so people can practice that, and practice navigating and reading out the slide numbers. Read all content out loud that you are presenting on the screen. Use a microphone.

When presenting in-person, use a microphone to transmit sound. Speaking loudly does not provide the same quality or loop system support. If you are presenting online, use a microphone with headphones to prevent background noise from distracting anyone that is hard of hearing, has sound sensitivity, or auditory processing disorder. And, finally, if you can, speak at a standard pace to improve caption quality.

Slide 20. Before we move on to the next section of this training, I wanted to share a note about presenting and disability inclusion. Previous presentation best practices you may have heard in school or at work, such as speaking clearly or standing still, are not inclusive to the disability community. Disabled people are presenters and public speakers. Presenters can be neurodivergent or have anxiety, and may prefer to fidget, pace, or not make eye contact with the crowd.

Presenters can have a speech disability, such as stuttering, cluttering, or apraxia. Presenters can use augmentative and alternative communication, AAC, to speak. And another example is, presenters can have balance issues and prefer to sit rather than stand. Slide 21. Now let's go over accessibility best practices after your presentation.

Slide 22. Ensure your presentation recording is accessible. If you are sending out a recording after your presentation, ensure you provide closed captions and a transcript. Also, ensure you use an accessible video player. For example, at the President's Office, we recommend using the Brightcove video player. Slide 23. Ensure your post-event communication and survey are accessible.

The post-event communications should follow the email accessibility best practices covered in our checklist. When creating a survey, ensure you are using accessible survey tool. You can check with the digital experience team on which approved form tool to use for your survey. Also include a question around the accessibility of your presentation so you can receive specific feedback on that aspect of the presentation.

Always make the survey anonymous so folks can complete it without disclosing a disability. Slide 24. As we wrap up this training, I wanted to remind people to leverage the Accessible Presentations Checklist. Slide 25. I recommend saving the Accessible Presentations Checklist as a favorite. There is a lot to remember when it comes to both developing and delivering accessible presentation.

We've created an interactive checklist that you can complete. You can even send a copy to yourself. The checklist will be available in the Resources section of this Learning Path. Just a note that I do have an image on this slide of a checklist with a check mark on the second item, and a pencil next to that checklist.

Slide 26. Thank you so much for attending the Delivering Accessible Presentations Training. You can reach out to the Digital Experience Team at dxteam@umassp.edu with any questions. We also have office hours that are available via our email signatures, and through the Inclusive by Design website.