BRASS Best Practices for Webinar and Online Presentation

• Speak clearly and use simple language (avoid jargon, acronyms, idioms)
  • Don't just read notes. If you’re worried about saying the wrong thing or leaving something out; that happens in face-to-face presentations too.
  • Visualize that you are talking to people in a classroom, not just a computer screen.
• Use a microphone (headset) and make sure you’re speaking into the microphone continuously
• Cover all displayed text (you don’t have to read off the slide, but make sure you cover what the visual information says)
• Describe pertinent parts of graphics, videos, etc. and describe other visual information
• Start on time and don’t catch people up who join late.

• Show this information in print while you say it out loud, in case people are having trouble with audio
  • Explain mute buttons, how to ask questions, timing 
  • Explain how to use any of the interactive tools you plan to use later in the webinar
  • Announce who is on the call (or at least, how many people are attending)
• Outline what you’ll be discussing.

• Engage your audience the moment they join the event with an opening slide containing a relevant and interesting fact or anecdote.
• Use interactive tools to take advantage of the features that are uniquely real-time:
  • Raise Hand icon for gauging active participants, who’s familiar with the topic, encouraging participants to focus on the session
  • Polling/chat: Get to know the audience. E.g., self-assessment: "how comfortable do you feel with the topic?"
    • In addition to webinar tools: Slido (free version allows you to give up to 3 polls at a time to an unlimited number of participants), Mentimeter
  • Status icons (thumbs up/down, X vs. checkmark, etc.):
    • Ask people to vote, agree/disagree
    • Identify volunteers to share results of an activity, etc.
  • Use mark-up capabilities as they make sense, e.g., draw a circle around a key point or a line to connect related issues.
  • Application/desktop sharing:
    • Uploading a PowerPoint or PDF is a great way to share information, but sharing applications or your desktop is a good way to engage attendees.
    • Rather than show a screen shot of a website, go to the website and navigate through the content you are discussing.”
  • Breakout rooms
• Put the emotions back in that the format takes out. Use emotional language, e.g., “I’m concerned,” “I’m thrilled,” “That comment really upsets me because….”

Accessibility standards that are used in your websites and in-person presentation materials are all relevant to presenting online:

• Color contrast and fonts: WCAG has a list of color contrast analyzer tools and accessible fonts
• Descriptive links: avoid using "click here" for text of links, or pasting the link itself. Screen readers read the display text of links, so using a short description of what the link is for will help users of this type of software find and understand links.
• Alt-text: provide a short description of any images in an alt-text field, again so that screen readers can inform users what the image is. This is more relevant for materials that you plan to share with attendees before or after your presentation.
• Captions for videos

Following these standards and tools will make any materials that you show during the presentation or share with participants as accessible as possible. But when presenting online, live captions may also be needed by some participants in order to hear or follow along. Both Zoom and Microsoft Teams have built-in options that can be enabled to provided these live captions; these tools can still be inaccurate, but the technology is improving:

• Zoom: Managing automated captions
• Microsoft Teams: Using Live Captions

Both Zoom and Microsoft Teams also provide automatic audio transcription that can be downloaded after a presentation is over to assist with editing captions for a recording:

• Zoom: Audio transcription
• Microsoft Teams: Live Transcription