Video meetings: glimpses into the barriers 3

While each of the many video conferencing platforms (MS Teams, Zoom, Jitsi Meet, Skype, Google Meets, WebEx…) is similar and has broadly the same functions/controls, they are all in different places, orders and with different spacing. For example, on the Microsoft Teams iOS app, the buttons are mainly at the bottom of the screen where on Zoom, they are at the top. A software update can change the number, position, order and spacing of the on-screen buttons. It can also  introduce new functions that were previously on menus, sometimes these have been well implemented for accessibility (they speak their function), other times they have not been properly labelled and might just say ‘button’ and nothing more, or no longer work  consistently.

 

Blind people use either keyboard commands (on a laptop), or finger gestures (on a smartphone or tablet) to move around the screen, but all this information about button positions needs to be memorised for those who play an active role in busy meetings.

At most meetings, Presenters will use the screen sharing function to make their documents/PowerPoint visible to all the (sighted) participants. This feature is completely inaccessible to blind people as it only displays the document/etc as a graphic (a picture) where a screen reader requires actual text (rather than merely a picture of it).

 

I would generally be sent the documents for a meeting beforehand. However, while this is good practice, it also incorporates an unstated expectation that I will be able to make the time to read through them in advance (on top of my full workload) -  to spend extra time preparing for what others expect to be presented with at the meeting itself.

 

This can feel like a significant pressure, especially if I hear what I judge to be disappointment or occasionally irritation in people’s voices when I have to admit (publically) that I haven’t had chance to read through everything in advance.

 

I’ll look more in future posts at this sense of pressure to have to do extra work just to keep up that disabled people face in culturally non-disabled workplaces.

 

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