Inaccessible virtual meetings

Why is this a problem?

Virtual meetings can create barriers if they are not planned with accessibility in mind. This makes it difficult for everyone to participate. A virtual meeting will not be able to meet all accessibility needs, but they should be set up to address the accessibility needs of the people participating.

Common problems include:

• Materials not shared before the meeting so people have time to prepare.
• Poor sound or no microphones.
• No video of the speakers or poor lighting which makes lip reading impossible.
• Slides or images not described aloud.
• Small or hard-to-read text.
• No captions, or captions that are wrong.
• No sign language/interpretation.
• No chat monitoring.
• Chat used in such a way that it interrupts screen readers, forcing people who use screen readers to either ignore the chat or miss the content in the main meeting.
• Documents that don’t work with screen readers or other assistive technologies.
• Fast-paced live editing, which is not clearly described as it is happening.
• Online tools like polls, whiteboards or chat services that are hard to use or don’t work with assistive technologies
• Internet or platform problems, or incompatibility with assistive technologies

Ways to address the barrier