The April issue of Teaching@Sydney outlined some simple ways in which tools such as Word or Powerpoint can be used to ensure that teaching resources are accessible to the many students who have some level of visual impairment. Most handouts, lecture slides and manuals are made using these programs although the principle of building in accessibilty before conversion to PDF extends to other authoring tools, including LaTeX and Google Docs.
One of the easiest to implement of the tips is simply to use the University templates for Word and Powerpoint, which are designed with accessibility in mind (and to resist reducing the font size). The PowerPoint, A4 document and event booklet templates have recently been updated by Marketing and Communications with enhanced bar graphs for people with colour vision deficiencies. Switching teaching resources to these new templates is one step in making sure that they will be accessible to the widest range of staff and students.
