One of the key tenets of this site’s approach to scholarly speaking is that presenters should try to anticipate and meet the needs of their audience. Making our scholarly presentations accessible is an important way of ensuring that we take our audiences’ needs into consideration.
Accessibility is defined as “enabling people with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life, having access to all aspects of society on an equal and equitable basis with others.” (Accessibility Standards Canada)
As scholars, we want to share our research in a way that gives everyone the best chance to understand and engage with our ideas. In everyday conversation, we tailor our communication to meet different audiences all the time. For example, how you explain your progress in a favourite video game will likely differ depending on whether you’re explaining it to fellow gamers in a stream’s chat or to your grandparents over dinner. As scholars, we should similarly evaluate what our audience needs to be able to follow our ideas. Are there key terms we need to define? Numerical data that’d be easier to read on a slide? Important arguments that we can repeat in simpler language?
Audience members for our scholarly presentations will generally have diverse needs, and we can’t always know in advance precisely what those needs will be. We can, however, follow a set of best practices to try to allow as many audience members as possible to learn about our research. These practices are especially important to accommodate audience members whose disabilities impact what they need as audience members.
Whose responsibility is accessibility? These days, most universities and colleges have departments dedicated to accessibility and accommodations. Given these resources, one might assume that the institutions we study at will “take care of” accessibility needs through policy. Too often, though, there is a gap between policy and practice, leaving individuals with disabilities to advocate for themselves in the absence of effective institutional support. Moreover, there are support and access needs for which no official accommodations are available. We want to make sure everyone is supported and included, and not just people with official accommodations.
Instead of thinking of accessibility as either an institutional or an individual responsibility, we believe it should be seen as a community responsibility. This way of thinking is in keeping with what’s called “the social model of disability”:
The social model sees ‘disability’ is the result of the interaction between people living with impairments and an environment filled with physical, attitudinal, communication and social barriers. It therefore carries the implication that the physical, attitudinal, communication and social environment must change to enable people living with impairments to participate in society on an equal basis with others. (People with Disabilities Australia)
As members of the scholarly community, we are all responsible for making our community’s spaces and events more accessible and inclusive. We might advocate for changes at the institutional level, but we can also make changes in the everyday ways we function in the university, including how we share knowledge. And that’s where making our scholarly presentations accessible comes into play.
Meeting Your Audience’s Needs
Once we recognize that making our scholarly speaking events accessible is a community responsibility, we can start to think about how to meet the needs of a diverse audience. In any given university course, there will likely be multiple students with disabilities in the class, whether visible or invisible, diagnosed or undiagnosed, accommodated or unaccommodated. Listening to the members of our community with disabilities is always the best way to make our scholarly spaces more accessible, whether through engaging in individual conversations or by exploring the work of scholars and advocates with disabilities.
Below, we have included a few considerations and adjustments for you to review when preparing and giving your presentation. This list is not comprehensive; instead, it’s designed to get you thinking about things able-bodied and neurotypical individuals might take for granted.
- Oral presentations ask us to process information differently than written texts. For people with auditory processing issues, oral presentations can be challenging to follow. Ensuring that you’re speaking at a slower pace, repeating key ideas, and sharing important information on your slides can help them—and all audience members—better keep up with your presentation.
- People with auditory processing information, and many others, are distracted by other noise in the environment. As an audience member, listen respectfully and quietly, not just for the presenter’s sake, but also for your fellow listeners.
- Use plain language whenever possible to make your presentation accessible and inclusive. If you need to use specific technical or theoretical terms, offer accessible definitions in everyday language. Don't assume everyone has the same knowledge of social and historical context.
- For deaf or hearing-impaired audience members, you can double-check that ASL interpretation has been offered—but that’s typically not the individual presenter’s responsibility. Microsoft PowerPoint and other presentation slide platforms also have live captioning features that can be used when ASL interpretation cannot be arranged, and captions can be helpful for many audience members.
- Slides can be a great tool to increase accessibility, but we need to make sure our use of slides is inclusive. For people with visual impairments, it can be frustrating when information that’s necessary to understand the research project is shared only in visual form, like a graph on a slide. When presenting, make sure to describe visual elements from your slides so that everyone receives the same information. Don’t worry about describing decorative elements, but even if you have, say, a fun meme on your slide, make sure everyone gets to enjoy it by describing it aloud. For tips on describing visual elements, see this guide. Also, remember to use large, clear fonts and contrasting colours between text and background on your slides to ensure they’re legible for as many people as possible. For more information on accessible slide design, visit this site and this site.
- Advocate for the needs of community members with disabilities. If you see ways that a classroom instructor, conference organizer, or individual presenter can better meet the needs of people with disabilities, speak up! It’s often best to have these conversations one-on-one, but providing constructive feedback and actionable recommendations can ensure you and your peers better conditions for the future. Most people want to do better—do you see an opportunity to help them learn about accessibility?
Making Sure Your Needs Are Met
If you’re a university student with a disability, you’re probably used to advocating for yourself and the accommodations you require for your learning. While post-secondary institutions are increasingly invested in trying to make their classrooms and campuses more accessible, students with disabilities have often learned the hard way not to take accommodations for granted.
As both a presenter and an audience member, you might find that you require accommodation to make your participation possible. In advance of the event, you might inquire about information such as:
- Ramp access to the space, stage and/or podium
- Priority or wheelchair seating
- Captioning for presentations
- ASL interpretation availability
- Entrance/exit accessibility for the audience during presentations
- Proximity of accessible and gender neutral washrooms
You can always encourage the event organizer to make accessibility information available for all participants so that individuals don't have to ask in the future!
Thank you to Dr. Jennifer Hardwick for her contributions to improving this page