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.
