Beyond Traditional Visual Presentation Slides: A Universally Designed Augmented Reality Companion for Inclusive Classrooms

Live slide presentations can be hard to access because they often rely on visual information that people must see or follow in the moment. Instructors may also describe slides with phrases such as "as shown here," which can exclude students who cannot decode the visual content. These barriers can also affect anyone sitting far from the screen or dealing with glare. Accordingly, making live slide-based presentations more accessible is important. This paper presents SlidAR, a universally designed mobile augmented reality companion that makes traditional slide presentations more accessible by recognizing slides and linking them to haptic cues, short audio descriptions, and 3D overlays. Since AR often lacks accessibility support, SlidAR contributes to both slide accessibility and AR accessibility. Designed to support different users, needs, abilities, and ways of learning, SlidAR does not replace existing slide tools but adds a flexible multimodal access layer to traditional slides. It can be used with a handheld mobile device or a low-cost head-mounted display. We conducted a preliminary mixed-methods study with 14 participants who differed in role, age, accessibility needs, and previous AR experience. Overall, participants used the system successfully and rated it positively, finding it easy to use, engaging, and useful for understanding slide content. The findings suggest that audio descriptions can make visual and spatial slide information easier to access, while AR overlays and haptic cues may support engagement and orientation. The study also identified challenges, including overlapping audio narration and live lecturer speech, sensitivity to classroom lighting conditions, and headset comfort. Overall, SlidAR shows that universally designed AR can extend traditional slide presentations into more inclusive, multimodal, and engaging experiences.