On the show were Andrea Snyder, Jill Hurst-Wahl, Tom Haymes, Paul Signorelli, and Maurice Coleman. Spurred by some recent activities on making presentations more accessible, accessibility was the topic for this episode. We talked about some tools and methods, as well as why accessibility matters. As Tom noted, accessibility is a way to reach more people.
We talked about:
- Closed captioning
- Eliminating complexity in your content
- Reacting to the look of confusion in your audience and reacting to it
- Having accessible language
- Reading the chat out loud for those who are blind or visually impaired
- Describe what is on the screen when you have people who need to hear the visual clues
- Alt-text for images and graphics
- Checking the reading order of text
- Re-arranging your class session to accommodate people who need material to be more accessible
Resources:
- New for Google Slides: Automatically Add Closed Captions to Presentations (2018)
- Add closed captions or subtitles to media in PowerPoint
- Hearing Access: Zoom is Beta Testing Integrated Auto Captions (2020)
- Digital accessibility in higher education (2020), 58 min. video
- Thing Explainer by Randall Munroe
Our next show will record on Dec. 3 at 9 p.m. ET. You’re welcome to join us!