Creating Accessible Presentations

Goals

• Demonstrate PowerPoints Strengths and Weaknesses
• Look at accommodation strategies
• Show off some alternatives
• Discuss the issue and get feedback

What's so Great about Powerpoint ?

• Ubiquitous

• Easy to use

• Integrated into teaching and learning

What's Wrong with Powerpoint?

• An embarrassment of riches
• Accessibility, usability concerns
• Encourages bad design

More Specifically...

• Images are not accessible - graphics, flow charts, etc.
• Unstructured text renders content inaccessible.
• Multimedia elements are often incorporated without alternate formats
• Web conversion is difficult and imprecise

The Bottom Line

• Design flexibility leads to poor usability, with low contrast, inappropriate sizing of elements, and other accessibility ramifications.

• Poor usability leads to poor accessibility...

Interoperability

• SLMS simply scrape screens or grab images of PowerPoint (or other) content
• This isn't PowerPoint's fault

PowerPoint Viewer

• Microsoft's PowerPoint Viewer does not provide the end user with the tools to manipulate the underlying presentation if they choose to modify it to meet their access needs.

Portability vs. Ubiquity

• PowerPoint is everywhere, but is typically run from a local instance
• Web-native content is platform independent and accessible from any location.

The Ironic Solution

• Limit design options to the point at which PowerPoint is no longer the best tool for the job
• Switch tools

Standards-Based Tools

• Standards-based solutions are a logical and effective departure from PowerPoint.

• The majority of PowerPoint's functionality can be effectively replicated on the Web

• Those items that cannot are no great loss from an instructional design perspective.

 

PowerPoint Alternatives

• Let's take a look at what's out there!

HTML and CSS-based solutions

• S5, Developed as a Web-based slide-show alternative, S5 is built exclusively with XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript. You are looking at S5 right now!

• Wimpypoint, a free, database-driven Web alternative to PowerPoint - bare bones and functional.
• CITA's conversion tool. Designed to exceed Section 508 and W3C WCAG 1.0 AA disability standards, and it validates to HTML 4.01 loose and current CSS standards

   

Third Party Applications

• CourseGenie, a conversion tool with presentational possibilities (but not a PowerPoint killer).

• LecShare, a cross-platform application designed to create accessible Web pages from PowerPoint that meet Section 508 standards and WAI's guidelines.

• PPT2HTML, A PowerPoint-to-HTML conversion application that has an accessibility compliance focus and batch conversion capability.

Free Tools (Free is good!)

• W3C Slidemaker, a PERL script that can be used to generate HTML slides, using CSS that can be easily overridden by the end user.
• OpenOffice Impress, an open source presentation application similar to PowerPoint.

More Free Tools

• Slidey, A robust W3C XHTML slide generator with some cool features.

• SlideML, an XML format for generating slide presentations. Promising but perhaps not ready for prime time.
• PERLPoint, A presentation solution written in PERL that includes the ability to export to HTML, XHTML/XML/S5, and (interestingly) LaTEX.

Using Text Formats

• The "least common denominator" of data interchange is ASCII text

• both 8-bit ASCII and Rich Text Format (RTF) present good opportunities for ensuring a base level of comprehensibility for all users.

• RTF provides some presentational flexibility - while still being easily parsed by almost any assistive technology.

   

Thank You! Questions?

• Contact Jason at jason_morningstar@unc.edu
• Contact Saroj at saroj_primlani@ncsu.edu
• UNC's accessibility site
• NCSU's accessibility site