Presenter Guide

Information for Accessible Presentations

The UC Libraries Forum (UCLF) planning committee strives to ensure that the conference is accessible for all
participants. All sessions will make live transcription available to participants. Sign language interpretation is available upon request.

We strongly recommend that you review and apply the following accessibility guidelines:

Preparing Slides

1. Ensure that any domain-specific terminology and methodology included in your slides and script are explained for a diverse academic library audience.
2. Review the text in your slides: if you have an acronym, spell it out. We will be asking you to submit your lexicon for our live caption service prior to the conference. Examples:
   • SCLG: Shared Content Leadership Group, CDL: California Digital Library
   • Terms that may be confused by other terms
   • Terms used in a novel way
3. We encourage participants to use the Accessibility Checker in PowerPoint or Accessibility Checker for Google Slides when preparing slides.
4. We encourage participants to use an accessible slide template for PowerPoint or one of the built-in themes in Google Slides.
5. When adding a new slide in your selected theme, use one of the available layouts, rather than editing them or creating a new layout. This will assist screen readers with your content.
6. Use high contrast color: dark text on a light background or light text on a dark background is easiest to read.
7. Avoid animations or transitions, which can trip up screen readers.
8. Title each slide.
9. Avoid using color alone to convey meaning
10. Add alt-text to images that aren’t purely descriptive (instructions for PowerPoint; Google Slides will prompt for alt-text when you upload media).
11. Use a sans-serif font, a minimum of 18-pt, and line spacing at 1.5. In the following order, the most accessible fonts are: Arial, Calibri, Century Gothic, Helvetica, Tahoma, and Verdana.
12. Use bolded text sparingly for emphasis (not italics or uppercase).
13. Use meaningful link text for hyperlinks and short URLs (e.g., tinyurl.com allows you to customize short links).
14. Review the reading order of content on each slide: Set the reading order for content on PowerPoint
15. slides and run the Accessibility Checker to ensure screen readers are reading in the correct order.

Giving Your Talk

1. Practice your presentation to ensure you are pacing yourself. Speak more slowly than you think you need. Ensure that your presentation fits within the stated limits (15 minutes for presentations, 5 minutes for lightning talks).
2. Review your presentation script or notes: if you expect to mention an acronym, explain what it stands for. We will be asking you to submit your lexicon for our live caption service prior to the conference.
3. Summarize the text on your slides. If you are sharing an important image, such as a chart or graph, verbally describe the important information that images shows (e.g., what the data shows, axes titles).
4. If showing video, ensure that the video is close captioned and that captions are turned on when you play it.
5. If you are comfortably sharing your slides, provide the file or link for the chat.
6. During your presentation time, speak clearly and minimize background noise.

Adapted from The Association for Computers and the Humanities “Accessibility,” Syone’s “Best Practices for Accessibility at Virtual Events”, Electronic Resources and Libraries’ “Virtual Presentation Accessibility Guidelines”, and Harvard University’s “Accessible Documents.”