Conducting virtual meetings and conference events accessible to people with disabilities

by Art Phonsawat ACAA Associate Access Consultant Vista Access Architects

Art is a qualified Interior Designer, qualified Access Consultant and an Associate member of the Association of Consultants in Access Australia. Art has been with Vista Access Architects since May 2020.

2020: what a year that was! We had to adapt to an unprecedented and unpredictable global situation in response to a pandemic that has changed the shape of our day to day lives going forward. In this ‘new norm’, most of us had to learn to work from home, and while that seemed a novel idea to begin with, it has posed its own challenges. For some of us, these new issues have been amplified by existing hurdles that many Australians face in working with a disability, whether it be vision impairment, hearing, speaking, or physical impairments. It has always been important to provide an inclusive working environment for everyone, and now more than ever, it is essential to know how to conduct a virtual meeting or interview with these factors in mind. Conferences can span the gamut of tiring, informative and interesting (and we’ve all been in every one of those meetings), but to a person with a disability, these meetings can be a daunting experience or a labor-intensive endeavor, as they try to grasp and follow the information being delivered. A lot of tools and apps help, but technology alone is rarely intuitive. Being in a position where you can aid this process, there is an unspoken responsibility for you to strive to make any virtual meetings and interviews as inclusive as possible.

Planning is a key step for any success, and a few extra steps can make a huge difference to your presentation and ensure an inclusive meeting. Here are a few ideas to think about when planning your next virtual meeting:

CHOOSING YOUR PLATFORM

Perhaps the first step is making sure the platform you are using to deliver the information has features and accessibility functions designed to help you get your information across to a diverse audience. Programs like Skype and Zoom have a light and dark mode setting as well as high contrast for their texts and menus but Skype has options to increase the font size and zoom in and out.

Zoom offers a closed captioning option where you or a nominated user can type out the closed captioning which will be seen by all within the meeting, other options are third party apps that work in Zoom to provide live captioning but with most of these apps the only available language is English (US). Websites such as rev.com provide this service at $20USD a month and boasts an 80% accuracy rate.

Microsoft Teams have a built in live captioning setting which is easy to turn on as shown below. This is a free service which Microsoft provides and is also available in Google Meet.

Image from Microsoft support

HAVING ACCESSIBLE MATERIAL

Screen sharing has been revolutionary in this period of working from home and virtual meetings. It saves time, and can speed up virtual training for new employees, but screen sharing poses a problem for people with a vision impairment as most of the time screen readers are used to aid in meetings and day to day work. Making sure all content within the meeting is available and distributed beforehand, or linked within the chatbox or meeting invite, will help prepare the audience for the meeting.

KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE

Finding out who is going to attend the meeting is a great way to be prepared, knowing what materials to prepare and structuring your slides and presentation to keep the audience interested and above all understandable.

Finding out who is going to attend the meeting is a great way to be prepared. This can inform any additional materials you need to prepare or any restructuring required to keep your audience interested, and ensure that all audience members are able to understand your content. If providing an invite or a registration form, it’s easy to include a couple of questions on any accessibility needs required by the participant.

INTERPRETATION

For major meetings delivered to a larger audience, budgeting for a sign language interpreter will be highly beneficial to clear up any confusion and to ensure the information being delivered will be received and avoid confusion. A text captioning service can also be used to aid the meeting.

Be mindful of the duration of meetings when using an interpreter, as most interpreters will need a break every few minutes. For meetings

that have an extended duration, a good idea is to have two interpreters on hand to cater for rest periods. Most organisations that provide sign language interpreters will ask you how long will the meeting go for, as well as general topics being discussed, in which they can advise you on the best way to go.

APPEARANCE MATTERS

Another point to think about is, ‘Will the person running the meeting have their camera on?’

This has potential to allow people who have a hearing impairment to follow along with visual cues as well as lip-reading, but with the camera on there are a few things to consider:

• Adequate lighting for the presenter. Ensuring the clearest image possible.

• Avoid using virtual backgrounds. This can be confusing for people with a visual impairment as most virtual backgrounds often “bleed” onto the presenter's face and clothes on screen.

• Avoid sitting with your back to a reflective surface or a window as it causes a glare and the face will be almost blacked out.

STRUCTURING YOUR PRESENTATION

• Colour contrasting on the pages of the presentation to make it easily distinguishable. Apps used for contrast checking are available online.

• Identifying the person who is speaking at the beginning of their turn.

• Font sizing and style should be a minimum of 12pt and avoid using all uppercase, non-serif fonts are the best for this application

• Image descriptions should be attached to all images and distributed beforehand to the audience. A brief caption or blurb on the imagery can provide context relating to the particular section being discussed or presented.

• Video and audible content should be accompanied by one another; any videos added to the presentation should be accompanied by an audio description, and audio content should be transcribed to be displayed during the presentation.

• Avoid screen presenting a scrolling page as this is can be hard to follow for a multitude of people as texts can be harder to read and follow along.

• Be mindful of jargon, slang, and assumed knowledge to be inclusive of all attendees.

• Ensure your slides are uncluttered and consider using images to help explain concepts.

• Leave ample time for questions.

• Avoid meeting fatigue. Presentations that go on and on can be taxing for all involved and be even harder for those of us that have a disability.

Situations will dictate what extra provisions will be needed and every meeting should be planned for individually, but a lot of these structures and points should be developed as a general practice as they demonstrate a great level of understanding and preparation.

Remember that we are all learning in this new working environment, but having these skills and preparation levels ensures that we can still provide an inclusive work environment for all to engage, enjoy and hopefully deliver a successful meeting.