Year of study & degree: 2nd year Psychology and Linguistics
Internship: Learn Foundations Intern
Meal deal of choice: Least offensive looking sandwich + Bakery item + Smoothie
Favourite floor in Argyle House: Definitely K
The title of your preferred work playlist: tasteless bops
Subpar Slides
As a Learn Foundations Intern, I’m involved in conducting a number of checks on the university’s Virtual Learning Environment, Learn. We are tasked with verifying the presence of a school-dependent template and making sure that the correct variables are present, among other things (think LOTS of Excel spreadsheets filled with Ys and Ns).
But the part of my internship that has intrigued me the most so far is the accessibility checks that I’ve had to fill out for a random sample of courses from each school. More specifically, I thoroughly enjoyed scrolling through the PowerPoint slides of various courses and imagining the lectures that had accompanied them (a personal favourite so far were the slides of a female filmmakers course from which I got great movie recommendations).
But what about the accessibility of these slides?
It leaves much to be desired, unfortunately. Aside from scans of documents, PowerPoints seem to be the documents that consistently have the most accessibility issues, ranging from insufficient contrast between text and slide backgrounds to images that didn’t include alternative text.
I was stumped, as there is guidance on how to make PowerPoint presentations accessible to all, as well as a template provided by the university. Why weren’t people using that template?
Both beautiful and accessible
Whilst I was staring incredulously at the university template that was getting so little use, I came to the realisation that a possible explanation for its invariable rejection was that it was a little too template-like. Its background is a neutral navy blue, and its font is Arial. What it has in accessibility, it lacks in flair. I believe that one reason the template may not be used is that course organisers want to add personality to the slides.
But surely both are possible? This got me thinking about the way in which I design my own PowerPoint presentations. I frequently make use of online databases of PowerPoint templates, where I can choose between a myriad of different layouts and designs.
How could we blend the world of accessibility and the world of design freedom?
A possible route forward
One of the aspects I appreciate most about having an internship within ISG is that my line manager and supervisors are very keen on hearing our feedback and potential suggestions for improvements. This allowed me to suggest a database of accessible PowerPoint templates, to expand on the single template that currently exists and to enable course organisers to opt for an accessible template without sacrificing their aesthetic desires. If time permits, I would like to work on this project in the later stages of my internship.
– your new Blog Editor
(https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-using-laptop-computer-4531877/ In the Public Domain.)
