- Put your name on the first slide. You are also welcome to put your name in the footer of each slide, if you like.
- Include a slide at the beginning of your presentation that provides an outline or otherwise lays out what you will cover in the presentation.
- Include slides that indicate transitions in your presentation. This helps your audience understand the flow of your presentation and indicates to you when to transition from one point or topic to another.
- When you use text, bullet points are more effective than paragraphs
- When using text, make it a reasonable size for your audience (this will adjust if you are presenting to a Zoom audience versus if you are presenting to an face-to-face audience. (When presenting in a f2f context, the best guideline is to have text be at least 24pt.)
- Use sans serif fonts (Arial, Verdana, Helvetica)
- Do not use color as the only method for distinguishing information. Using a color-blindness simulator will help ensure that your color scheme is accessible to all viewers.
- Make sure that there is a high degree of contrast between the color of text and the color of the background of a slide, e.g. black text on a white background, light grey text on a black background, dark blue text on a light blue background, etc.
- Stark white text on black background is best avoided due to fuzzing and halation.
- Rely more on images more than text. Do not write everything you will say in your presentation onto your slides.
- Cite all images used (unless they have no copyright CC-0 or you own them)
- Include screenshots of websites instead of relying on live demos – Instead, talk through the interactions and describe what you are doing instead of relying solely on the image to convey information.
- Any videos played during presentations should be captioned and audio described.
- Avoid rapidly flashing or strobing lights in slideshow special effects.
These tips took inspiration from the ACH 2019 conference accessible presentations page.
