'Remote working'

I am ‘working remotely’ from home and have had to pay great attention to how I best accomplish this. ‘remote working’ is the practice of working at home, usually on a laptop  but using various technologies to (virtually and actually) speak to colleagues, take part in (meetings, one-to-one conversations and to be able to access all the electronic resources that are normally available in the workplace. I use screen reader software to access my PC, tablet and phone that use keyboard commands or screen gestures (in the case of the phone/tablet) to navigate the screen where controls and text are read out with an electronic voice.

 

I work in the NHS and naturally, due to the current circumstances, the sheer pace of the work is incredibly fast, but exhilarating too. I am aware that I have to work differently from sighted colleagues just to keep up with the new landscape of communication technology. Working across different organisations, I find myself using at least five different video and audio chat and messaging applications (e.g. Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype, WebEx) to hold meetings, briefings and to communicate between staff groups etc. In practice, this means having to switch from one platform to another in rapid succession as one meeting or conversation leads straight into the next.

 

Each platform has different kinds of access (or lack of it)for a screen reader. All provide roughly similar functions and features but with different interfaces, layouts and quirks, this means that  there is an awful lot for me to learn and memorise about how to use each of them confidently and reliably. This means careful preparation learning the various layouts and practicing in order to become confident in advance so that I don’t make a mistake when using them. Then if I don’t use one platform for a few days, the detail fades in my memory.

 

Simple basic Things like how to reliably find/reach  the right button to mute my microphone or camera, not seeing enough to know whether the camera is lined up with my face properly, finding the ‘speak’ or ‘stop call’ buttons, often realising that while I can listen and talk, I cannot access the text notes that others are writing and sending continually between each other (but which are nonetheless read out in my earphone interrupting what people are saying in the meeting). While many sighted people perhaps don’t have technological confidence, they can see the screen of the laptop, tablet or phone as a single thing, quickly scan it and spot where the important buttons are that they need, where blind people have to first explore the whole screen methodically in order to understand the layout and to find the right control or button.

 

I often find that while an app is mainly accessible, some key functions have not been labelled properly or at all – this can mean that the ‘call’, ‘mute microphone’, ‘video’ or ‘raise hand to indicate wish to speak’ buttons might merely read ’button’. This is frustrating, infuriating, irritating and diminishing of my confidence and ability to participate in meetings properly.

 

Too much detail perhaps, but this is my blog, and it is the detail that gives it meaning. Vague statements about intent, accessibility, barriers or whatever don’t have meaning until they are described and explored.