Making Scientific Content More Accessible

Abstract

E ach year, scientists present their work at conferences and other public forums and use a range of illustrative materials to help communicate the science more effectively. Much of this accompany ing material is then published or posted online. Improving communication is critical because it facilitates collaboration with colleagues, policy makers, and key stakeholders and helps us share our science with broader publics. However, in preparing these supporting materials, one audience group has consistently been forgotten: people with sensory disabilities. People with vision and hearing dis abilities make up 19% of the US population but only 4.5% of all doctoral recipients in 2014 (the most recent reporting year from the NSF). Neglecting the needs of these individuals in public scientific presentations creates a considerable barrier to their participation in the sciences.Many of the core principles of accessibility for presentations are about color choice, proper use of head ings, and clearly labeled figures. These design elements improve experiences for all audiences but are of critical importance to people with sensory disabilities. Given the importance of public presentations for building professional networks and developing new contacts, accessibility benefits the entire scientific community. It removes barriers for presenters and audience members with disabilities, while facilitating communication and connections between scientific peers that last far beyond any single event.Professional scientific societies have made considerable and intentional strides toward inclusivity. However, the primary methods of professional communication and socialization -conference talks, seminars, and poster sessions -often present barriers when steps are not taken to accommodate and engage individuals with sensory disabilities. Small changes, like making presentations and posters available online before talks, are within the purview of societies and conference organizers, and could make an important difference to users of assistive technology such as screen readers.Increasing the engagement and participation of people with sensory disabilities is almost never men tioned in professional communication resources. Indeed, the advice they give sometimes contradicts established guidelines, encouraging presenters to eliminate captions and text on slides or making state ments such as "audiences can read your slides too", which fail to acknowledge the presence of scientists who cannot. These articles can give the impression that disabled scientists aren't a part of the commu nity, don't attend public presentations, don't present their own work, and aren't reading research articles or consuming web resources. As both creators and consumers of presentations, the contribu tions and needs of scientists with disabilities deserve to be addressed.The most important step that individuals can take is simple: "consider accessibility". This can mean evaluating color choice and contrast, using headings and document markup, modifying graphic design ch...