Accessibility guidelines for online meetings

Plan your meeting beforehand to ensure all accessibility requirements are met.

Here are the things you need to consider:

• Be clear what you expect from your participants before and during the meeting. For example, do you require them to report back, participate, problem solve or share ideas?
• Share any documents or materials as soon as possible beforehand
• Think about an appropriate time for the meeting, especially if people are joining from overseas and are in a different time zone
• Ask for accessibility requirements in advance to allow people to share them privately rather than in the meeting

When planning your meeting, consider the following:

• Make sure the agenda is not overly crowded
• Include breaks every hour
• Make sure you know how much time you have for your presentation and practice it to ensure everything can be covered without rushing
• Share your agenda in advance with participants

Start by introducing yourself and anyone else who is speaking.

This is extremely helpful in larger meetings when it can be confusing listening to different speakers. If you speak multiple times, you should still announce yourself, although this is not necessary in smaller meetings once initial introductions have been made.

Record the meeting for people who are not able to attend.

It will also help people to remember what was covered and allows presenters to analyse their performance and improve on any accessibility issues encountered.

Stay within the allotted time in the agenda and ensure scheduled breaks are taken on time.

Be clear about the message you want to share and keep your language simple and direct.

It is important to maximise your screen when sharing information. Here’s how:

• Make sure your screen is uncluttered
• Only share the window containing the content you want to talk about
• Make sure you are sharing content at a reasonable size and ask your audience whether they require you to make any adjustments
• In office applications, use Focus mode to make the content appear bigger
• Zoom in on any content that is difficult to see
• Ask if everyone in the meeting can see what is on your screen before continuing and describe what is on the screen verbally to make sure people with visual impairments can follow along

You can control ‘Noise suppression’ within Microsoft Teams if you are in a noisy environment.

Consider muting the audience until you require them to speak or ask questions. The audience should refrain from interrupting the speaker during the meeting unless they have been asked to speak.

Use animations sparingly as they can be confusing for people with low vision.

Moving content is distracting and makes it difficult for people to focus. Stay quiet while animations, gifs, or videos are playing so that they can heard clearly.

You should also provide captions for video or audio content using automated captions or a live captionist. There are pros and cons for each:

• Automatic captions rely on voice recognition software and translate speech to text instantly, but are not always accurate.
• A professional captionist will produce a transcription of speech without errors, but the turnaround will not be as quick as automated captions.

Live captions on MS Teams can be turned on using the three-dot menu at the top of the meeting screen.

Anyone in the meeting can do this and it will only be enabled for them. Captions include the name of the person speaking.

Switch on ‘Live transcription’ in Microsoft Teams to automatically take notes of the meeting.

Anyone in the meeting can turn it on and the notes will be available to everyone at the end of the meeting.

Produce brief, clear notes of the topics discussed, what decisions were taken, who is going to take action and by when.

Ensure all documents shared are accessible: it is important to use plain language and avoid acronyms or jargon. The only time to use acronyms is when they are more commonly recognised than when spelled out. Examples include URL, QR code and USB. Share the recording of the meeting.

Ask attendees for their feedback regarding accessibility and inclusion.

Also, look at what could be improved for next time.