This video on creating accessible and engaging presentations is brought to you by AHEAD.
In this video, our aim is to give you the knowledge and tools to enable you to put together
an engaging presentation which is accessible to as many as possible, and during the course
of the video, we’ll cover fonts and colour, slide design, using images and videos, presentation
delivery and presentation content. Let’s start with some basic tips to ensure
that everyone can access the information you want to get across.
Firstly, share your slides with your audience a few days in advance. This one simple action
is a game-changer for many in your audience as it allows them to prepare appropriately.
Many people like to explore some concepts beforehand so they are not confused on the
day, others like to print slide handouts so they can make notes directly on them. Some
will bring a laptop with the slides pre-loaded so they can follow the presentation from there
and easily make digital notes they can quickly file. For users with visual impairments, it
allows them to make large print versions or use technology to zoom in and out of the slides
as necessary. If sign language interpreters are being used, any information they can be
sent beforehand is vital in helping them to provide a quality service. So, you can see,
there’s a myriad of reasons why it’s essential and important to provide your slides to your
audience in advance. In terms of slide design, It is recommended
to use an absolute minimum of 24 point font size and to always use simple Sans Serif fonts.
Serifs are the elaborate tails and ornamentation that you see on fonts like Times New Roman
and some find them much harder to read than Sans Serif fonts like Arial and Verdana which
are simpler and cleaner. Additionally, create good font contrast by ensuring that you use
dark coloured text on plain, light coloured backgrounds and avoiding placing text over
images. If you are using bullet points, it can be useful to alternate the colour of each
point between two dark but distinguishable colours like a dark grey and a blue for legibility.
When it comes to text on slides, less is more so do not overcrowd your slides with text
and try to keep them visually uncluttered. The aim is to provide instructive outlines
on your slide content rather than micro essays. Remember the slides are for your audience,
not you, so avoid the trap of containing notes for you to remember on them and instead, use
the slide notes facility in PowerPoint if necessary, to add extra memory cues visible
only to you or bring along good old-fashioned paper notes to jog your memory if that works
better for you. Additionally, it’s good to support text
with images where appropriate but be sure that the image holds some relevance to the
content on the slide. When using statistics in your presentation
avoid putting up complicated data tables and charts unless absolutely necessary and instead
ask yourself, how much does the audience need to know for this presentation? You might find
you can distil the key information into a much simpler, more easily digestible visual.
Remember you can always add links to more information for curious souls to explore later
in more detail. It’s important to state that if you are
using visuals to transmit information, you should also verbally transmit that information
since you may have someone with a visual impairment in the audience, or even just someone at the
back of the room who forgot their glasses. So, when you pick an image for a slide, ask
yourself ‘is this just a visually pleasing supporting image or is it transmitting something
that I need to verbally convey to somebody who can’t see it’.
Equally, for those in the room who may be deaf or hard of hearing, it’s important
that you remember to face the audience at all times if possible, and not to cover your
mouth when talking since many rely on lip reading to support verbal comprehension.
It’s also useful not to speak too fast if you can. This will be helpful to any non-native
speakers in the room and is vital for sign language interpreters and captioners in giving
them adequate time to carry out their role, should they be present.
Video is also an excellent format to bring theory and practice to life through the sharing
of stories and experiences in your presentation. Just be sure not play videos which are too
long – as a rule of thumb your absolute max video length should be 2 and a half minutes
per 15 minutes of presentation, so if you have a 30-minute presentation, then you can
show a video up to 5 minutes in length but generally 2-4-minute chunks work best. It’s
very important that that when using video, you ensure that captions are provided to support
those who are deaf or non-native speakers. This can also help more generally in ensuring
everybody can understand what is being said in your video, if for example, the sound system
you are using is not up to scratch. If it’s your own video, you can use YouTube
to upload a typed transcript which YouTube will automatically sync and turn into timed
closed captions for you – just google it to find out how. When searching for videos
on YouTube, you can easily filter the results to show only those which have proper captions
already uploaded, helping you to select a more accessible video for your presentation.
Now let’s take a look at the presentation content. If you are going to give a clear
and understandable presentation, then it’s good to start by ensuring that you yourself
are clear on what you are trying to achieve and what take-aways you want the audience
to leave with. If appropriate, these aims and objectives can then be translated into
an introductory slide for your presentation so you can be clear with your audience on
what is ahead and ensure everyone is on the same page – a bit like how we introduced
this video. Once you have established the goal of your
presentation you can then plan the best way to achieve it. When structuring your presentation
and thinking about how to get your message across, one of the most important factors
to think about is how to keep your audience engaged throughout. The golden rule here is
to mix it up! Don’t present for too long with the audience passively listening without
allowing them opportunities to participate more actively. For shorter presentations,
you can get your audience participating by using simple methods like asking for a show
of hands in answer to a question, asking them to post ideas on post its up on the wall which
others can view after the session, setting them a topic for a 2 min discussion with the
person next to them or engaging them with live online feedback tools like Kahoot. For
longer sessions, try to build in some group activities where topics are discussed or challenges
are worked on together. When implementing this type of group work, it’s a good idea
to verbally describe the challenge and write it up on a slide or provide it on a handout
if possible so that people can refer back to it throughout the task if necessary. These
types of activities engage different parts of the brain and adding them to your session
will make for a much richer learning experience for your audience.
Additionally, don’t try to cover too much. Better to get your key messages across in
a simple and memorable way than having twice as much content but having to rush through
it or even worse, running out of time. In the spirit of mixing it up, don’t spend
too long on any one format. For instance, let’s imagine you are delivering a 1-hour
session on…you’ve guessed it, making engaging presentations. You could start with a 5-minute
ice breaker activity, follow it with 20 minutes of verbal presentation with slides and images
which delivers information about the practice suggested in this video and the theory behind
why these practices work. Next you could move on to a 15-minute group activity which attempts
to place that information in a real-world situation and challenges the audience to think
critically and act on their newfound knowledge and to learn from their peers in the process.
An example would be to give them a topic and ask them to design an engaging and accessible
workshop schedule on it. You could follow that with a 5-minute video showing some real-life
feedback from people who’ve been at sessions designed like this and educators who’ve
used these practices to give context on why it’s important to be accessible and engaging.
You could then deliver a 5-minute sum up of the key points touched on in the session and
provide an outline of resources to explore further before using the last 10 minutes for
a Q and A session and a ‘next steps’ exercise which asks the audience to reflect on how
they are going to use the knowledge gained in their own practice.
It’s always good towards the end of a session to signpost resources for further exploration
either in a slide or soft copy document which you can share with participants.
So, now you’ve got the basics, it’s time for you to go and design an engaging and accessible
lecture, conference presentation or workshop for yourself.
Many of the tips here have been influenced by the Universal Design for Learning framework.
For more information on the framework visit ahead.ie/udl.