PowerPoint

Best Practices

Text

Because PowerPoints are often presented in person, font choice and font size are especially important. The easier it is to visually process your text, the more your audience will retain from your presentation. Here are three things to think about when designing your slides:

• Font size, which should never be smaller than 18pt across your presentation. Any smaller than that, and you risk it being difficult to read. It’s recommended to stay around 24pt font for paragraph text. PowerPoint will automatically reduce your font size to fit into a text box by default, so make sure to keep an eye on it as you create your slides. If your text is getting too small, it may be a good idea to split your discussion points across shorter slides.
• Spacing is critical to your audience’s understanding of the materials you are presenting. Too much text clumped together can be difficult for students to pick apart, and this is especially true for those with disabilities. Though PowerPoint defaults to paragraphs without spacing breaks, you can easily add space when making a new paragraph by holding shift, pressing enter, releasing shift, and then pressing enter again.
• Font choice, which you can read more about on the Accessible Content Guide page is an easy way to make your text more readable. Simply avoiding serif fonts for paragraph text, and you can greatly improve your slides’ readability.

Preparation

One of the best things to do ahead of a presentation is to provide a digital copy of your PowerPoint to your audience.

Your PowerPoint does not need to be provided significantly ahead of time or be designed to be viewed in a vacuum; simply having the PowerPoint can help your audience follow along more easily.

For instance, notetaking software can often integrate PowerPoint documents; allowing students to note them in the same way they would be able to if they printed out the slide deck. For students with disabilities, knowing the order of the slides can be critical to keeping track of what is currently happening in your presentation.

Instructors can share their PowerPoints easily by uploading them to Canvas. However, if you plan on creating/editing your presentations up to the last minute, disseminating the file through email before class is also perfectly reasonable.

Presenting

In general, you do not need to change your presentation style to account for students with disabilities. Instead of presenting differently, think about augmenting your presentation by integrating technology.

Instructors can rely on Media Service to help configure and set up audio-visual technologies, like various microphone setups, that make it much easier for students to follow along.

For students who are blind or have low vision, you do not need to overly describe your slides. Simply be sure to provide the PowerPoint to them ahead of time and use the tips above to make the document accessible.