Last quarter, we worked with a mid-sized tech client who’d just closed a partnership with a global accessibility nonprofit. The client’s team had spent three months building what they thought was an inclusive presentation platform, and they wanted us to run a presentation for 120 of their frontline sales team—half of whom had different accessibility needs: low vision, neurodivergent conditions like ADHD, and a few with mobility impairments that made sitting through long, unbroken slideshows difficult. At first, we jumped in with what we’d always done as a Presentation & Collaboration supplier: test the presentation for basic screen reader compatibility, add alt text, and trim down on text-heavy slides. But halfway through the workshop, one of the nonprofit’s accessibility leads stopped us mid-run. “You’re fixing your presentation for people with disabilities, but you’re forgetting that collaboration is a two-way street,” they said. That line stuck with us—and it’s the core of what we want to share today: making presentations accessible isn’t just a one-time fix for your content, it’s collaboration, and it starts with centering the people you’re building for from the first conversation to the final run-through. Presentation & Collaboration
Too many teams treat accessibility as an afterthought. They check a box: add alt text, use high-contrast colors, and call it a day. But accessibility for people with disabilities isn’t a list of rules—it’s about meeting people where they are, and that requires working with them, not just for them. As someone who’s spent the last five years helping teams build collaboration tools and presentations, I’ve seen how collaborative accessibility works when it’s done right, and where teams slip up when they treat it as a solo project. Let’s start with the part no one talks about: before you build a single slide, talk to your users. Not just the HR team who wrote the accessibility policy, not the designers who mock up the slides, but the people who will actually sit through the presentation.
A few months back, we supported a healthcare company building a new product launch presentation. They’d spent six months designing slides, wrote all the copy, and scheduled a launch for 300 employees. We asked them: “Have you run this by anyone with visual impairments in your team?” Their answer was “We added high-contrast colors, so that’s covered.” We pushed, and finally, they connected us with Maria, a senior nurse with low vision who uses a screen reader. When we walked her through their draft slides, she pointed out a problem no one had considered: their slide titles were written as all caps, so her screen reader pronounced every single word as a separate syllable—“P-R-O-D-U-C-T L-A-U-N-C-H” instead of “Product Launch.” That small change—lowercasing the first letter of each word—fixed the screen reader’s pronunciation, but it would have stayed hidden if we hadn’t collaborated with Maria before the final draft. That’s the first rule: accessibility isn’t a design task, it’s a collaborative conversation. Don’t wait until your presentation is done to ask for feedback. Bring people with different disabilities into your planning calls early.
Another common misstep is treating accessibility as only for people with sensory disabilities. But accessibility impacts the entire collaboration process, from how you present to how people engage in the room. Let’s take neurodivergent audiences, for example. A few years ago, we worked with a tech startup that was pitching a new product to investors. Their initial presentation was a 45-minute block of slides, no breaks, with fast transitions and bright animations. When we tested it with Jake, a developer on the team who has ADHD, he said he’d last 10 minutes before checking out. Instead of just telling the team to “slow down,” we collaborated with Jake to adjust the presentation structure. We added two 2-minute “reset” points: short slides with a single question (“What stood out to you most so far?”) that let people rest, and we cut the total time down to 30 minutes, with each slide limited to three core points. The investors who attended the pitch later told us it was the most engaging presentation they’d seen all month—and we know the changes we made for Jake’s ADHD made a big difference. That’s the thing about inclusive collaboration: changes that help people with disabilities often help everyone. The reset points helped busy investors process information, the shorter slides helped the neurodivergent team members presenting, and the clear, single-point layout made the presentation easier for the non-disabled team too.
Now, let’s talk about the part we as a Presentation & Collaboration supplier know best: the tools you use to build and deliver presentations. Too many tools make accessibility hard by design. They force you to use text-heavy slides, their screen reader integration is an afterthought, and collaboration features like live polls or chat aren’t accessible to people with mobility impairments who can’t use a mouse, or people with hearing impairments who can’t hear audio cues. We’ve seen teams waste hours trying to fix a presentation in a tool that’s not built for accessibility. That’s why when we work with clients, we don’t just share a list of best practices—we integrate accessibility into the collaboration workflow from the start. For example, when we build a presentation for a client, we include a collaborative feedback tool that lets team members with different disabilities leave specific notes: a user with low vision can flag a slide with poor contrast, a user with mobility impairments can note that the live chat feature requires too much typing, and a user with ADHD can suggest adding more visual breaks. That’s collaboration in action, not just a one-way review.
Let’s get specific about the small, collaborative choices that make a big difference. First, when you’re building slides, collaborate with users to define “content limits.” A common rule of thumb is 6 lines of text per slide, but that’s not one-size-fits-all. A user with low vision might need fewer lines to read comfortably, while a non-disabled user might be fine with a few more. The only way to get that right is to ask. Second, when delivering a presentation, collaborative accessibility means giving people choices. Don’t just project a single set of slides—let people access a digital copy of the presentation ahead of time, in a format that works for their assistive technology: screen-reader compatible PDFs, high-contrast versions, or simplified text only. We worked with a financial services firm that started doing this for all their client presentations, and they reported that 30% more clients with disabilities gave positive feedback about their accessibility, compared to the year before. Third, during Q&A, collaborate with the audience to make sure everyone can participate. If someone in a wheelchair can’t easily raise their hand, let them use a slide deck’s chat feature to ask questions. If someone with hearing impairments can’t hear the audio of a live demo, provide a closed caption link that they can pull up on their own device. These aren’t complicated changes, but they’re rooted in collaboration—you’re giving people the tools to engage, instead of forcing them to adapt to your presentation.
We’ve also learned that accessibility means listening to feedback after the presentation, not just during it. After the healthcare company’s product launch, we sent a short survey to the attendees, and Maria followed up to say that the all-caps slide titles we’d fixed were helpful, but she wished the team had added a transcript of the presentation ahead of time so she could preview it. That feedback didn’t mean the launch was a failure—it meant we had a new step to add to our collaborative process. Now, every presentation we build includes a pre-presentation transcript for people who need to review content before the session, and a post-presentation survey that asks specific accessibility questions: Did the presentation’s tools work with your assistive technology? Was there any part of the session that made it hard to engage? That continuous feedback loop turns a one-time presentation into an ongoing collaboration, where accessibility gets better every time.
A lot of teams still think “accessible presentation” means checking a list. But from our experience as a Presentation & Collaboration supplier, the most accessible presentations are the ones built not by designers or project managers, but by a team that includes the people with disabilities who will experience the content. It’s not about making your presentation “perfect” by some industry standard—it’s about making it work for every single person who is there to learn, engage, or be informed. The changes don’t have to be expensive, either. When we worked with the tech startup’s investor pitch, we didn’t add any fancy software; we just adjusted the slide structure, added the reset points, and shared a digital copy of the presentation in a high-contrast format. The startup saved thousands of dollars, and their pitch still stood out because it was designed for everyone.
Now, we know that for many teams, accessibility can feel overwhelming. It’s easy to think “we don’t have anyone with disabilities on our team, so why bother?” But that’s a mistake. Accessibility benefits everyone: a working parent who has to step away from a long meeting to care for a kid, a remote employee with a slow internet connection who can’t stream video, a new hire who needs more time to process information. It’s not just a “disability thing”—it’s a collaboration thing. When you build presentations that are accessible, you’re building presentations that work for more people, and that makes your collaboration better, period.
Accessories If you’re a team that’s looking to make your presentations more accessible, or you’re not sure where to start with collaborative accessibility, we’re here to help. We work with teams of all sizes, from small startups to large corporations, to integrate accessibility into every step of the presentation and collaboration process. We don’t just sell tools or give a checklist—we walk through your needs, connect you with accessibility resources, and work side by side with your team to build presentations that everyone can engage with.
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