There are just a few additional accessibility consideration in PowerPoint:
1. Give every slide a unique title
People who are blind, have low vision, or a reading disability rely on slide titles to navigate. For example, by skimming the Outline View or using a screen reader, they can quickly scan through a list of slide titles and go right to the slide they want.
Slide Titles
Add a slide title
- Use slide format that contains a title
- Type in a unique title for each slide
If you don’t want a slide to have a visible title, but still have one voiced by screen readers and visible in Outline view.
- On the Home tab, in the Drawing group, select Arrange.
- In the Arrange menu, select Selection Pane.
- In the Selection pane, locate the Title text box, and then click the eye icon next to it.
- Select the title text
- Format the text to have the same color as the slide background
- Select the title box, and choose the Home tab > Arrange > Send to Back
2. Use Sufficient White Space
White space does not mean that your presentation cannot have color, you just need to leave sufficient space around words for them to be easily legible
3. Make sure slide contents can be read in the order that you intend
When someone who can see reads a slide, they usually read things, such as text or a picture, in the order the elements appear on the slide. In contrast, a screen reader reads the elements of a slide in the order they were added to the slide, which might be very different from the order in which things appear.
To make sure everyone reads the contents in the order you intend, it's important to check the reading order.
Use the Selection pane to set the order in which the screen readers read the slide contents. The Selection pane lists the objects on the slide in reverse order. When the screen reader reads this slide, it reads the objects from the bottom to the top of the listing in the Selection pane.
- On the Home tab, in the Drawing group, select Arrange.
- In the Arrange menu, select Selection Pane.
- In the Selection pane, to change the reading order, do one of the following:
- Drag and drop items to the new location.
- Select the item and then select the Up arrow button (Bring Forward) or Down arrow button (Send Backward).
4. When creating a new slide, use the built-in slide designs
PowerPoint has built-in slide designs that contain placeholders for text, videos, pictures, clip art, and more. They also contain all the formatting, such as theme colors, fonts, and effects. To make sure that your slides are accessible, the built-in layouts are designed so that the reading order is the same for people who see and people who use technology such as screen readers.
- On the View tab, click Normal.
- In the Thumbnail pane, locate the place where you want to add the new slide. Right-click, and select New Slide. Click the new slide to select it.
- On the Design tab, expand the Themes gallery, and select the slide layout that you want. PowerPoint automatically applies this layout to the new slide.
- Go to the new slide, and add the title and content that you want.