MONASH CCS GEDI COMMITTEE PRESENTS
“My walk on the path to equity in STEMM” International Day of
People with a Disability
Professor Louise Purton
Head, Stem Cell Regulation Unit
St. Vincent's Institute of Medical
Research

On the topic of change…. What you can do to help make presentations more accessible
Many people are trained to keep presentations very simple- less text, more pictures
This usually makes presentations less accessible to people with disabilities
1/7 people have a hearing disability, these vary in how profound they are and span people of all age groups
Numerous disabilities are not accommodated well by the minimalist presentation styles now favoured
Many rely heavily on text and live captioning (this also assists ESL people) to follow seminars, TV, movies and
all video-based media forms, and also lip read (make sure your face is visible and well lit)

One in five people have a disability and many presentations are less accessible for them
I am still learning how to improve my presentations for people with other disabilities
I am happy to share what I have learned and would love to hear from others on how to further improve to
accommodate their disability (I do not know it all!)
Preferred font for dyslexic people: Calibri (Times is OK) and leave lots of white space between sentences-
also applies in any written formats (grant applications etc) unless specific rules prevent accommodating this
Improving accessibility for dyslexia people (acknowledging A/Prof Traude Beilharz for these tips)
People with dyslexia prefer visual anchors and text without uneven word spacing
Do not use centre-justified text, left-only justified works better

Colour helps to reduce “blandness” of presentations but colour blindness is also common
Try and avoid colours that are hard for people with colour blindness to access
If you use GraphPad Prism to generate graphs it has an option that can automatically choose a colour
scheme that is accessible for people with colour blindness (you can also manually choose colours)
Screenshot of option to
change colours in Prism
Colour options available
Default grey tone colours
Automated
Colourblind Safe
colours

If you do imaging studies, please consider making the images accessible too
Standard (inaccessible) colour palette Same image, accessible colour palette
Acknowledgements to Dr Gavin Tjin for generating these data
Colour panels suitable for images, graphs and figures
Used to generate image at right

There are many people who have vision disabilities that also require assistance
Virtual presentations, recorded talks (and even social media platforms) have increased the ability to improve
accessibility of “in real time” presentations, including for people who use screen readers
Be aware of the size of your font- make sure it is large enough to read (especially on small computer screens)
Pictures have an “Alt text” option- click on the picture in PowerPoint when preparing your talk
Write in the white
box that appears
at the right of the
screen
Avoid using tables if possible

Other things to keep in mind to improve accessibility
Flashing lights might look cool (including social media GIFs) but if you use them you could trigger an epileptic
episode or adversely affect other people with neurological disabilities
When giving face to face presentations always use a microphone- you might think that everyone can hear
you but likely there is at least one person in the room who needs that microphone
Speak clearly (do not mumble!) and try not to talk too fast
Light background colours with dark text are easier to read than dark backgrounds with light text
If people would not be able to follow your talk if the sound was off, many will not be able to follow it when
the sound is on (also applies to people who have difficult following accents, including ESL)

Why is improving accessibility of your presentation important if you do not require it?
There are many people with a range of disabilities- if you exclude them you are excluding a significant
portion of your audience
It does not take much extra work to do this, yet you can benefit too, even invitations to present elsewhere
We all deserve to be treated equitably
People are trained to simplify their presentations, yet little is done to improve accessibility which often
declines with this type of training
Finding a balance of both is the best way to proceed, less information is readily available on improving
accessibility
The more we are aware, the more we can improve access for everyone

Simple workplace adjustments can improve accessibility for disabled people
The ability to work from home and/or part-time assists many who cannot physically be at work all the time
Most importantly: provide an environment where everyone feels safe and supported
JobAccess employment assistance fund- easy to apply for and provides $$ for workplace adjustments
Hybrid seminars, conferences improve accessibility for many (not just disabled people)
Adjustments are not hard to do and make a big difference to many