Accessible Google Slides

This post was contributed by Veronica Vold, Equinox Learning Design, LLC. Thank you to Kaela Parks, Dean of Inclusive & Accessible Education, Portland Community College, and Daniel Rockwell, Director, Center for Teaching & Learning, Western Oregon University.

This post explains how to use slide layouts to make Google Slides accessible for screen reader software. We focus on Google Slides because unlike PowerPoint, Google doesn’t have a built-in accessibility checker.

Google slide decks present accessibility and licensing challenges that make them tricky to share. This is because authors typically pull in images and other content from multiple sources, and have complex layouts. Of course, these are the same reasons that some instructors appreciate this format.

Sometimes instructors export Google slides as a PDF to share with students. However, PDFs can also require remediation to ensure selectable text, proper reading order, alt text, and image descriptions. In other words, this workaround doesn’t automatically make your slides accessible.

The following guidelines will help you create and share accessible slide decks.

Takeaways: Best Practices for Slide Decks

1. Use slide layouts when you create your slide deck (see below for more info) to ensure that each slide has a title, and users can access the content in the right order.
2. Use openly licensed images so that you have clear permission to share via your slide deck. Visit Open Images [Website] on the Open Oregon Educational Resources FAQ to browse repositories of openly licensed images with an emphasis on inclusion.
3. Write an attribution statement for any openly licensed content that you are reusing from other sources. The easiest way to do this is with the Open Washington Attribution Builder [Website].
4. Add an open license to the title slide so that future educators know what permissions they have when they reuse your content. Open Licenses Step by Step [Google Slides] shows you how to do this.
5. Follow best practices for accessibility for all the content types in your slides: use descriptive links, add alt text to images, avoid using color to denote meaning, use table headers, and ensure that videos are captioned. See A Universal Design Approach to Links [Website] and A Universal Design Approach to Accessible Figures [Website] for more details.
6. Slide transitions and animations can be incompatible with screen reader software. To streamline your workflow, consider authoring slide decks without these features.
7. The presentation notes field is accessible to screen readers and can be used for information beyond lecture notes. Examples include using this space for data sources, attribution statements, or descriptions of complex images.

Use Slide Layouts to Avoid Fixes Later

Slide layouts are essential to making accessible Google Slides. This is because slide layouts allow you to use pre-set placeholders that can be read by screen reader software in the correct order.

Every slide must include a unique title in a title box, even if the slide is otherwise intentionally blank or image-only. If a visual title doesn’t serve your purpose, change the font color to match the background color or layer the title behind other content. If you have a series of slides on the same topic, include the series number in the text of the slide title to avoid duplication. For example, “Early Childhood Development (1 of 6).”

If you are starting a new project, start each slide with a layout before you add any content:

1. Insert a new slide.
2. Right-click the slide to apply the existing layout that best suits the format for your content.
3. Enter content into the appropriate placeholders.

If you don’t find an existing layout that formats content the way you wish, you can create a new slide layout or edit an existing layout in Theme Builder. To create your own custom slide layout with placeholders:

1. Go to Slide > Edit theme. The Theme Builder window will open.
2. Go to Insert > +New Layout. This will add a new slide in Theme Builder.
3. Go to Insert > Placeholder content. Add a title box and any other placeholders that serve your purpose: subtitle, body, or image.
4. Set the reading order of placeholders using the “send to back” feature: right-click the last placeholder that users should read and select “send to back.” Then right-click the second-to-last placeholder users should read and select “send to back.” Continue with this process. The slide title will be the last item to “send to back.”
5. Once you’re done editing the slide layout in Theme Builder, return to your slide deck by selecting any slide from the Slide Navigation Pane.
6. Right-click a slide to apply your new layout.
7. Enter content into the appropriate placeholders.

Check Existing Slide Decks

Google slides do not have a built-in accessibility checker. This means existing slide decks require manual review for accessibility.

Remediating existing slide decks for screen reader accessibility can take a lot of time. Some screen reader software can recognize slide content without placeholders. For this reason, we recommend prioritizing slide titles, reading order, and best practices for the content types in the deck. In the future, save time by creating your deck with a layout from the beginning.

For each slide in your deck, follow these steps:

1. Check for a slide title:
   1. Right-click on the slide in the Slide Navigation Pane to determine which slide layout has been applied. The slide layout thumbnail image will be outlined in bold in the slide layout menu. If the layout does not include a title box, apply a layout that includes one.
   2. Check that the slide has a unique title in the title box. If not, add or edit your slide title.
2. Check the reading order:
   1. Tab through all the content boxes to check that they will be read in the correct order by a screen reader.
   2. If content is out of order, use “send to back” to set the order, as described above.
3. Address accessibility by following best practices for the different content types in your presentation:
   1. Images have alt text
   2. Video is captioned
   3. Links have descriptive anchors
   4. Graphics do not use color to denote meaning
   5. Tables have a header row

Final thoughts

Slide decks are useful study tools for learners. They provide content organization and visual cues to develop recognition and fluency with new concepts. They can also help learners to strengthen recall and motivation by prompting them to remember specific moments or interactions from class. Sharing slide decks is thus an important way to extend learning beyond class time itself.

Sharing openly licensed slide decks allows future educators to build on your work to improve their own teaching. Making open slide decks accessible from the start ensures that all students have equitable access to learning now and in the future.

Attribution

This post is adapted in part from Y2 Unit 4.4: Populating Your Module Template with Accessible Content in your Learning Management System by Amy Hofer and Veronica Vold, licensed under CC BY 4.0.