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
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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
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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
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
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Standards-based solutions are a logical and effective departure from PowerPoint.
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The majority of PowerPoint's functionality can be effectively replicated on the Web
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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
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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
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CourseGenie, a conversion tool with presentational possibilities (but not a PowerPoint killer).
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LecShare,
a cross-platform application designed to create accessible Web pages from PowerPoint that meet Section 508 standards and WAI's guidelines.
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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.
Using Text Formats
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The "least common denominator" of data interchange is ASCII text
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both 8-bit ASCII and Rich Text Format (RTF) present good opportunities for ensuring a base level of comprehensibility for all users.
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RTF provides some presentational flexibility - while still being easily parsed by almost any assistive technology.