Making Accessible Presentations

Making Accessible Video Presentations

Video presentations, like papers, must be accessible. For videos to be accessible, they require an audio narration (so that a person with a visual impairment can understand the contents of the video) and text captions (so that a person who is deaf or hard of hearing can understand the video’s contents). Since accessibility is a top priority in our community, we may ask you to fix your video if it is not fully accessible. So, please follow these guidelines carefully, ask questions if you have them, and make accessibility a priority.

To assist you with creating an accessible video presentation, we have developed the following guidelines:

Steps for creating video presentation and closed-captioning:
  • Please DO NOT burn the captioning text directly into your video presentation. You will upload the video and closed-captioning files separately.
  • Make sure to describe important visuals.
  • Manually modify closed-captioning content to match video and audio and to verify correct transcription.
  • Try to keep your reading speed under 180 words per minute.
Guidelines for creating your presentation video:
  • Create your presentation video with audio using your favorite program (Adobe Premiere Pro, Zoom, PowerPoint, etc.).
  • Video length:
    • Poster/Demonstration: Three (3) minutes or less
    • All other papers: Six (6) minutes or less
  • Video resolution: 1920 x 1080px
  • Video format: MP4
Guidelines for accessible narrations:
  • Your narrations should be able to stand on their own. Try listening to your video without looking at it. If everything makes sense, you are on the right track.
  • Narrations should describe visuals including pictures, visualizations (graphs, etc), tables, and diagrams. Describe the important trends or most salient features of these visuals.
  • Avoid statements like, “As you can see here…” instead say, “This slide shows [described visual].”
  • Make sure you read or closely paraphrase any text that appears in the video.
Guidelines for closed-captioning:
  • Font: A san serif font (e.g., Arial, Helvetica, Verdana)
  • Font Color: White
  • Font Background: Black background box
  • Line Length: No more than ~40 characters
  • Number of Lines: No more than two (2) lines
  • Line Alignment: Center
  • Positioning: Lower center of the video presentation screen
  • Export captions format: SRT
  • Try to keep your subtitles on the screen for at least two (2) seconds.
  • Keep the bottom ~1/5 of the video screen free of important visuals. This keeps images from being covered over by the subtitles.
  • Captions should coincide with your audio soundtrack. If you have significant pauses, please add in ellipses (…).
  • If splitting your subtitles into two (2) lines, keep the lines at an equal or similar length.

For authors using Adobe Premiere Pro:

For authors using Flixier (https://flixier.com/tools/online-subtitle-editor):

Additional resources:

All accessible video presentation submissions (.mp4 and .srt) are due no later than August 30, 2023. Instructions for submitting the video presentation files will be announced shortly.

If you have any questions about the accessible video presentation guidelines, please contact the Hybrid Experiences Chair at hybrid-assets23@acm.org.

Making Accessible Presentations

Presenters are responsible for making their presentations accessible to the diverse attendees at the conference. For instance, there will be ASL interpreters during the conference for people who use sign language, and there will be attendees in the audience who are blind or who have low vision.

As a resource to our community, Kyle Rector has prepared a wonderful and concise guide about how to make your presentation accessible, along with a video: Accessible Presentation Guide. Please ensure that your presentation incorporates the recommendations from this guide.