With the coronavirus crisis forcing many of us to work from home and rely on digital channels, the need for good levels of accessibility for employees has never been more important. Recently we posted eight tips to improve digital accessibility for employees; this time around we’re going to focus on how you can specifically drive better accessibility for online meetings, usually which involve both audio and video.

With everyone working remotely, the number of online meetings has exploded.  Moreover, some of us are even using tools like Zoom to keep in touch with friends and family. While there have been many tips provided to support better online meetings, the need to maintain good accessibility has not been covered as extensively as it should be.

Four tips to improve the accessibility of online meetings

1. Optimise your tools settings

There are a plethora of online meeting and web conferencing apps. Zoom has emerged as a well-known name during the crisis, but there is also Skype, Microsoft Teams, Go To Meeting, Webex, Blue Jeans, Slack and many more. Most products will have some accessibility settings that can have a positive real-world impact on participants with issues. For example, within Zoom there are facilities for closed captioning, automatic transcripts, keyboard shortcuts and screen reader support. Different products will have different features.

Whatever tool you are using attempt to optimise settings for accessibility and use these for your meetings. Similarly, advise meeting participants of their options in being able to optimise settings.

1. Take the right approach to your meeting

   One of the most important factors in making an online meeting more accessible is to be cognisant of any issues the participants may have and then follow the right approach and etiquette accordingly. For example, if somebody is visually impaired make sure that you are not relying too much on visuals and use your voice to guide the meeting. Even consider whether actually a voice-only meeting is more appropriate.

   Similarly, if someone has hearing issues then use close captioning when you can. Other helpful approaches can include:

   • Muting everyone not speaking to make sure audio is clear
   • Increasing screen sizes when sharing a screen so items are more clearly visible

   It is also important that the person leading the meeting is sensitive in not drawing too much attention to an impairment or disability if this has the potential to cause a participant embarrassment. 

2. Provide captioning and subtitling where you can

   Providing captioning and subtitling in a video meeting or for a video can make all the difference to participants who have hearing problems. In recent years the automatic options surrounding this have got increasingly sophisticated and now some popular conferencing tools have real-time captioning as an option for online meetings.

   It’s worth remembering too that captioning not only benefits those with hearing disabilities but also potentially people where their native language is not the same as the one the meeting is being conducted in, or people who are in noisy places. Working at home can be noisy, if you have a young family for example.

3. Provide agendas, minutes, transcripts and recordings

   From an accessibility point of view, sometimes the pre- and post-meeting actions can be as important as the meeting itself. Providing an agenda and any required pre-reading not only helps keep your meeting focused and on time but can lessen the burden on those struggling to follow the meeting because of either hearing or visual disabilities.

   Providing similar assets post-meeting can also help participants who may have found it harder during the session:

   • Clear minutes with associated actions help to avoid misunderstandings
   • A recording allows people to review any elements they have missed
   • A transcript also provides a similar reference point.

   Where possible, any documentation should follow good accessibility practices. If also you’re accessing them in an online workspace or via an intranet for example, make sure this follows good levels of accessibility, and test key pages regularly which are being constantly updated.

Keep accessibility in mind

We know that digital teams have a lot on their plate now and we are all working under difficult conditions. Do keep accessibility in mind; it really helps others, particularly now that so much more communication, collaboration and meetings are happening online. We hope you’ve found these tips useful.