Accessibility Feature Presentations

Accessibility A.K.A. INCLUSITIVY

In compliance with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) the Department of Justice revised regulations for Accessible Design with 2010 Standards to implement in digital platforms. The 2010 Standards set minimum requirements – both scoping and technical -- for newly designed and constructed or altered State and local government facilities, public accommodations, and commercial facilities to be readily accessible to and usable by individuals with disabilities. (https://www.ada.gov/regs2010/2010ADAStandards/2010ADAstandards.htm)

Most software and digital programs have features of accessibility tools for individuals with disabilities to have opportunity to smoothly navigate through media, presentations, with support of tools to enhance their experience.

Accessibility tools provide opportunity for learners of various capabilities to have equal access to technological tools. These tools assist in either creating or accessing the content materials. There are special features to support special needs such as visual impairment (including low vision, blindness, color blindness), auditory impairments such as hard of hearing or deafness in one or both ears, motor skills or physical impairments, and learning challenges. Many technological devices and software programs include special features within the settings such as changing text size or color, along with background to support readability, speech-to-text- voice to text, or touch and speed controls for smooth navigation.

In consideration of these special features, instructional designers must consider factors such as graphics, animation, and narration that are implemented in training, curriculum, or web modules. For example, auditory narrations can negatively effect working memory processing when the learners must maintain complex verbal information online in order to integrate it with subsequently presented information which can lead to a gap in learning and a working memory overload (Broek, Segers, & Verhoeven, 2014). The instructional designer needs to create the presentation in which learners can make connections and understanding with the material.

Providing Possibilities

“For people without disabilities, technology makes things easier. For people with disabilities, technology makes things possible.” --IBM training manual 1991

When individuals have to create presentations or generate notes from presentation, it is beneficial to utilize graphic organizers for learning in that students generate non-linguistic representations to combine verbal understanding and make connections through imagery. The dual-coding theory argues that knowledge can be stored both in a verbal and imagery form, and the latter form is called ‘non-linguistic representations’ (Cateleyn, Mottart, & Valke, 2013). Graphic organizers such as concept maps, knowledge maps, and mind maps when constructed by the learner have shown significant increase with knowledge retention as compared to just studying records of texts, passages, or outlines. Graphic organizers are a strong strategy for individuals to represent and reflect on content information.

Create Relevant Content

*Presentations and training, or curriculum should still implement Instructional Design effective principles and tips for all Learners

*Key consideration of the Knowing YOUR Audience and ACCESSIBILITY/INCLUSIVITY of the materials

Resource Links to assist in creating Accessible Presentations:

1) WebAIM: PowerPoint Accessibility in Mind-Step-by-Step guidance in optimizing your presentation: https://webaim.org/techniques/powerpoint/

2) Web Accessibility Initiative- How to make your presentations Accessible to All (Physical versus Virtual Presentations: https://www.w3.org/WAI/teach-advocate/accessible-presentations/

3) Do-It *Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology- Guidance in making presentations accessible for individuals of varying disabilities: https://www.washington.edu/doit/how-can-you-make-your-presentation-accessible

Video Tutorials for Creating Accessible Presentations in various Programs

This short video tutorial is step-by-step guidance to implement Accessibility features in PowerPoint software.

This brief video in the Accessibility in Microsoft Office Suite series describes the key points in creating the most accessible Word documents.

A short video explaining how to create or edit your Microsoft Excel documents with accessibility in mind. The video shows common accessibility errors and how to fix them.

2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design

The U.S. Department of Justice provides a Software Accessibility Checklist:

https://www.justice.gov/crt/software-accessibility-checklist

References

Broek, G. S. E. v. d., Segers, P. C. J., & Verhoeven, L. T. W. (2014). Effects of text modality in

multimedia presentations on written and oral performance. Journal of Computer

Assisted Learning, 30(5), 438-449. doi:10.1111/jcal.12058

Casteleyn, J., Mottart, A., & Valcke, M. (2013). The impact of graphic organisers on learning

from presentations. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 22(3), 283-301.

doi:10.1080/1475939X.2013.784621