S.C.H.I.T. Deck: Conversation with Stephy Hogan

(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Loading...

    Stephy Hogan is a designer, speaker, and accessibility advocate who turns frustrating digital experiences into inclusive, user-centered solutions. With 20+ years of experience and a background in both chemistry and design, she blends creativity with empathy to craft accessible, impactful presentations and digital products. Founder of the Presentation Guild, she’s known for making PowerPoint powerful, fun, and inclusive—and for championing design that truly works for everyone.

In this conversation, Stephy discusses her recently launched S.C.H.I.T. Deck.

Geetesh: What inspired you to create the S.C.H.I.T. Deck? Was there a lightbulb moment or a slow burn? Also, you’ve had a fascinating journey from chemistry and presentations to UX and now accessibility. How did that background influence the way you approached the Deck?

Stephy: What usually inspires me to make things like this is when I see a topic that’s critically important… and also painfully boring or confusing to learn. Accessibility is one of those topics. I’ve been studying and implementing web accessibility for years, and even now, it’s something I’m still learning every day. The official documentation—the WCAG guidelines—is intentionally dry and dense (and it should be, since it’s used to determine legal compliance). But that level of detail is intimidating, especially for people who are just trying to make their work more inclusive.

The other half of the inspiration came from watching how often people don’t know where to start. They assume accessible design is either too much extra work or that it’ll limit their creativity—or both. And neither of those things is true. I want accessibility to feel like just another part of good design. It doesn’t have to be perfect. What matters is starting somewhere and improving bit by bit, until accessible thinking becomes part of your everyday design reflexes.

So, that’s what I set out to do: break it all down into plain English, focus on the why, the who, and the how, and turn something overwhelming into something you can flip through over coffee. The name—S.C.H.I.T.—isn’t just there to be cheeky (although… yes, also that). It’s an acronym for the five types of accessibility challenges people face: Sight, Cognition, Hearing, Interaction, and Technology-related issues. I organized the cards by who you’re designing for, not just what the rule says.

Honestly, my background in chemistry helped more than you’d think. Science taught me how to simplify the complex and present it clearly—skills that transferred surprisingly well into presentation design, UX, and now this. I don’t have a formal design degree, but I’ve spent my whole career making complicated information make sense for people. That’s exactly what the S.C.H.I.T. Deck is built to do.

Geetesh: If someone’s overwhelmed and just wants to start improving accessibility in their slides, what’s the very first S.C.H.I.T. card you’d hand them?

Stephy: Ooooh, good question! I have to pick one? That’s cruel—but okay, here’s my pick: the card about sensory characteristics.

This guideline gets overlooked all the time in slide design. It’s about making sure people can understand your content without relying solely on color, shape, location, or sound. Think of a chart where the only difference between data series is color—or a table that says “highlighted rows are the most important,” or a speaker pointing to a slide and saying, “As you can see on the left…” That doesn’t work for people with color blindness, low vision, or anyone who’s not physically in the room to follow your hand gestures.

Fixing this is usually simple: add data labels, use patterns in addition to color, or say what the important thing is instead of where it is. Once you notice this issue, you’ll start spotting it all the time—and correcting it makes your slides instantly more understandable to everyone.

Geetesh: If a presentation designer wants to advocate for accessibility in their company or with a client, how can they use your Deck to make the case?

Stephy: The S.C.H.I.T. Deck is a great tool for turning a “should do” into a “want to do.” A lot of folks in leadership or on client teams have never been taught what accessibility really means beyond legal buzzwords. So when you’re trying to advocate for it, throwing a 40-page PDF of WCAG standards on someone’s desk isn’t going to help. But handing them a card that explains, in simple language, how fixing contrast or adding Alt text can increase audience engagement and help more people actually absorb your message? That changes the conversation.

The Deck is built to spark those conversations. Each card gives you just enough context to explain why something matters, who it affects, and how to fix it—without overwhelming anyone. You can use it to run a mini-accessibility audit, build a checklist for a project, or even leave it casually on a conference room table and let curiosity do the rest.

It reframes accessibility from a compliance issue into a design advantage. Because at the end of the day, accessible slides don’t just help disabled users. They help every viewer understand your content faster, remember it longer, and stay more engaged. That’s a pretty easy sell once you’ve got the language to explain it—and that’s exactly what the Deck gives you.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.