#42987
Speaker(s)
- Celine Greene, Senior Digital Teaching and Learning Strategist, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Session Details
- Length of Session: 2-hr
- Format: Panel
- Expertise Level: Intermediate
- Type of session: General Conference
Summary
Microsoft PowerPoint templates are everywhere. But what makes a template truly accessible? This session considers many perspectives including the designers who create the branded templates, the users who start with a template to build their slides, and the audience who experiences the communication as intended. Learn to build a robust PowerPoint template that can be meaningfully accessed by everyone, even when working in the master templated layouts.
Abstract
The healthiest recipes start with the best ingredients. The same can be said about our presentations: a quality slide deck starts with a template that lends itself to a superior final product. And this excellence starts with considering everyone – including the editors working in the template.
In this session we will review the why and step through the how of creating an accessible template in Microsoft PowerPoint. This guidance reaches far beyond anything the built-in checker would tell us or any list of success criteria. Instead, it gets to the heart of offering every individual and assistive technology the clearest path to not just accessing and using our templates, but to truly communicating what we’re working with while requiring as little effort as possible.
We’ll start with understanding “true” title placeholders and customizing the colors in our template’s design themes, but go on to know the importance of descriptive names for every slide object and the prompts for the placeholders. Along the way we will learn editing shortcuts plus tips that will be helpful for everyone using our template. And by the end of our time together, you’ll have several nuggets of wisdom and “aha” moments that shine bright when putting it all into practice.
While this will be presented as a workshop where participants are welcome to work in their own files during the session, it is perfectly fine to simply learn and observe. For those who wish to participate in the full experience, the stand-alone version of PowerPoint (full program) is recommended as is a custom template or presentation that you will be able to reuse and/or share with others at your workplace.
Keypoints
- End users place false hope in “accessible” templates that really aren’t up to expectations.
- Editors and designers deserve accessibility in their work.
- We have a responsibility to make our templates an excellent foundation to accessible communications.
Disability Areas
Deaf/Hard of Hearing, Mobility, Vision
Topic Areas
Accessible Course Design, Campus & System-wide initiatives, Faculty Development & Support, Other, Uncategorized, Web/Media/App Access
Speaker Bio(s)
Celine Greene
As Senior Digital Teaching and Learning Strategist within the Center for Teaching and Learning at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH), Celine leads others toward purposeful, innovative, and inclusive solutions in learning. Her expertise lies in academic technology integration, emphasizing experiences designed for every learner. In strategizing, she considers students, faculty, supporting systems, and changing landscapes across education’s evolving demographics, technologies (including AI), and other resources. Her work includes promoting awareness of digital accessibility, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and many principles and practices that promote equity, engagement, persistence, retention, and academic success.