Sent Tuesday, August 4th, 2020

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Hello everyone,

Welcome to the Accessibility Minute newsletter! We, the CU Boulder Digital Accessibility Office, are trying this new format for connecting with our colleagues across campus who are interested in accessibility, including digital accessibility and accessible teaching practices. Our plan is to keep the newsletters short and sweet, focusing on just one accessibility skill or topic per month. Please read on for August’s topic, and if you have feedback or ideas for future newsletters, let us know!

Sharing (Your Slides) is Caring

What if you are teaching, or leading a webinar or meeting, and some of your participants cannot see the slides? They might not see them because they are blind or have low vision, or because they are d/Deaf or hard of hearing and need to pay close attention to captions or an interpreter. From a usability perspective, you might also have participants who are dialing in by phone, or are using a mobile app and cannot read the slides on a teeny-tiny phone screen.

Many participants, both those with and without disabilities, benefit from having direct access to your slides before, during, and after a presentation. Advance access is especially important for people who use assistive technology, as well as those who need more time to process information. Access to the slides during a presentation can help some people with focus and taking notes. Finally, consider that many people, especially students, appreciate the opportunity to review important content after the fact.

To ensure full access to your presentation, post your slides or share them by email, and also give participants a link to the slide deck at the beginning of your presentation. An easy way to do this is to save your slides in Google Drive and create a TinyURL that you read aloud when you present. Be sure to give participants a minute to access the slides after you share the link. For in-person meetings, providing printed copies of your materials can also be helpful.

Learn more:

August Challenge

This month, see if you can take one of these steps to help create a culture of sharing slides at CU Boulder:

  • If you present in a class, meeting, or webinar, share your materials with participants ahead of time. Ask participants if they find this helpful.
  • If you attend a presentation, ask if the presenter can share their slides with the group. Even if you don’t personally need digital access to the slides, asking the presenter helps reduce the burden on people who do need a copy for equal access.

Your Thoughts

Do you have concerns about sharing slides? Or, do you have examples of times when sharing slides was helpful for you or for others? Please send us your thoughts on this month’s topic. We may publish comments in next month’s newsletter.