Inclusive Chat in Video Conferencing for Screen Reader Users
Some of you may have friends, family members or co-workers who are visually impaired or blind and leverage assistive technology such as screen readers which are critical to access a broad range of digital technology in their professional or personal life and want to learn about the tools they use to help increase inclusion for all. Others may want to further their education on inclusion for digital technology and may find this blog post educational.
Some people may wonder how screen reader users who rely only on their sense of sounds from their screen reader speaking and other computer or mobile device alerts and notifications occurring at the same time participate or lead meetings and engage in chatting in video conferencing software. To participate screen reader users are required to chat while concentrating on reviewing slides, taking notes as needed and holding conversations with others. I am sometimes asked the question of how chatting works for me being a completely blind screen reader user. When someone asks me this question, they may be thinking that I might say that it is due to an accessibility issue that chatting during meetings is an accessibility issue. Although in most cases, it is not a technical accessibility issue. In my opinion it is more of a usability issue. I have outlined some of the reasons why below:
Issues That Inhibit Inclusive Chats
- Although chatting software is technically accessible in most cases, it is not feasible to chat at the same time you are (1 talking, (2 listening to others, (3 taking notes ,(4 reading the slides with a screen reader, all at the same time like I describe in Achieving Mental Focus In Spite Of Multiple Audible Distractions. To imagine what it is like, think about how you could comprehend what four people are talking about if they were all talking to you at once.
- Besides the multiple different auditory sources going on at once screen reader users use a combination of short-cut keys to move around the application to get to the chat options which causes the screen reader to speak every time a keystroke is pressed.
- In my opinion chatting in Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Slack or other chat tools to interact quickly or accurately to hold conversations or play games with others could be technically possible. However, in reality most of the time it is not or is not feasible during a meeting. Learn more about this topic in Creating Accessible Digital Zoom Meetings - Resource from Inclusion Works - Disability:IN that talks about chatting in Zoom meetings, which is exactly the same in other video conferencing tools that have
- Reading slides or other digital technology on a shared screen in video conferencing software is not accessible to screen reader participants.
- For JAWS screen reader users, if they are physically typing on their keyboard this silences JAWS from speaking any incoming chats if they are typing in any software or web browser. Read more about this behavior in accessibility - Possible to programmatically suppress the reading of a textarea? - Stack Overflow.
- Some issues depend on the situation such as when I was in a conference call waiting for a single participant to join with focus in the video conferencing software and the participant sent me a chat message. Since no one was talking, and I was not typing, causing my screen reader to make any noise or stop JAWS from talking I could hear the incoming chat message clearly with my screen reader. I could then navigate to the chat window and respond relatively easily with very little auditory sounds going on.
- Since screen reader users in most cases are not able to see the visual alerts that pop up from chatting software be aware they may miss some of the messages sent to the group in the meeting or a direct message sent to them.
- Some video conferencing and chat software updates to new versions automatically changes the way the user interface looks causing screen reader users the need to relearn where components are within the user interface. Also, occasionally some short-cut keys for the software are changed or removed requiring the screen reader user to relearn any new shortcut keys.
Tips to Assist with Inclusive Chatting
- Have a person assigned to monitor chats in meetings and read aloud any messages.
- If you know a person that is in the meeting who uses assistive technology, and a person asked them a question in chat let them know verbally in case they missed the message.
- Send all slides or any other digital technology that will be shared 24 hours ahead of time in an accessible format by email and not in chat. Some users prefer specific file types since they will work better with their assistive technology. Receiving files in advance will give the participant time to read the files in advance if needed and do any necessary file conversion.
- If chatting will be used to play games or chat in break out rooms which adds to the complexity, consider having partners to help ensure everyone can participate.
- If you sent a chat message to a person who uses a screen reader and they have not responded, maybe consider that they have not seen that message and follow up with a standard email message.
- Understand that if the user interface for any software such as video conferencing tools or chatting software changes due to an update it may take the screen reader user some time to re-orientate themselves on how to interact with the new version of the software. Therefore, be considerate while they learn the updated interface and operations.
- To help overcome some of the audio overload if you are a screen reader user consider utilizing another sense such as touch. Although not everybody can learn braille, consider learning braille, and how to use a braille display and leverage the sense of touch to feel the braille display and read incoming chat messages by touch.
- If you are a screen reader user and are not presenting, write and post your chat messages when there are gaps in the meeting in which you do not need to concentrate on the presenter or the conversation to help you hear what you are typing.
- If you use a screen reader or other assistive technology that has some of the challenges I describe, if possible, when you are in a meeting where you plan to participate in chats, consider avoiding multitasking, such as talking, referring to notes, taking notes, and reviewing slides to reduce multiple audio sources to help you hear chat messages and interact with them. To help with this keep your keyboard focus in the chat function reducing the need to press extra keystrokes which makes the screen reader announce every key pressed.
Conclusion
Although I focus on chatting in this blog post these challenges are identical to interacting with any user interface option using a screen reader in video conferencing software while in meetings. Despite these inclusion issues for participants who use screen readers, which some can be reduced as I described chatting is a very useful tool to be leveraged.
You can instantly share information including files and links. Chatting history is generally stored for participants to refer to later. This not only helps people in live meetings, referring to chat history also helps people who were not able to attend the live meetings. Chatting also helps to increase inclusion since it helps people with speech disabilities and other disabilities. Besides turning on the captioning during the meeting for people who are hard of hearing or deaf chatting allows those same participants with hearing difficulties to hold conversations during the meeting.
Participants need to be aware of the audience in the meetings and use inclusive practices so screen reader users can participate.
Questions to consider to help one learn about inclusive chatting:
Have you personally experienced these chatting challenges, or have you talked to others who have and how did they get around these chatting obstacles? Can you provide any examples of when you have seen the issues I have described? Do you have an example you can share of an application that may make this experience more usable and efficient for screen reader users?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments. If you have any comments or feedback, please send an email to Bill Tipton since unfortunately the comments are closed to my blog site.
Bill Tipton
Contributing Author,
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/
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