𝘈𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘹 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦: 3 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘴🕒
I think we can safely say we all spend more time on video conferences and calls than we did pre-Covid era.
A lot of the conferences that would have been in-person are now much more accessible online and remote. We’re now used to attending daily Teams meetings, participating in Zoom webinars and chatting with colleagues on Google Hangouts.
So, it’s worth considering three ways to make video conferencing more accessible for everyone.
We recommend exploring:
- Live captions
- Transcription
- Audio description
Read on as we explain why they are so important!
1. Live captioning
Group meetings and live events can be fast-paced and noisy. What’s more, we’ve all had it where our WIFI is notoriously unreliable and audio can often cut out or muffle.
This can make it tricky to follow important discussions, particularly for those team members who are hard of hearing, aren’t native English speakers or are juggling children in the background.
Integrating live captioning into your video conferencing, webinar or live stream can ensure that nobody misses a detail. This function is available on most major video conferencing platforms.
But don’t be tempted to rely on the platform’s built-in automatic captions if you want top-level accuracy. While they are getting better, they are quick and convenient for discussions, AI live captions aren’t as accurate as human live captions (AI: 70% – 85% accuracy based on glossary, audio quality and accent compared to 98% accuracy for humans).
If accuracy is paramount for you in a large scale video conference, partner with a live captioning expert who has the experience, resources and professional stenographers on board to be able to make a success of your live events and online meetings.
2. Transcription
As accessible music organisation Drake Music points out, the pace of group conversations can be inaccessible to some people.
A group conversation can move rapidly. This can be inaccessible to some people. In video calls there can also be an overwhelming amount of information to process (audio, visual, chat text etc). Check in with your group as to their requirements.
On top of this, with so many of us working at home and facing varying distractions, it can be easy to miss out key points of a discussion.
One solution that we suggest is providing a full transcription of your meeting for participants to access. This means that team members can recap key points afterwards at their own pace, make notes and ask follow-up questions if needed.
Your live captioning partner should be able to create this transcript for you as part of their service. Alternatively, you can ask for a transcript-only service.
3. Audio Description
One useful feature of video conferencing is the ability to share and present multimedia within the meeting itself.
However, when you share visually-led video or presentation content, it can be tricky for those who are blind and visually impaired to fully participate in a team discussion.
Ensure that you briefly describe any visual elements of content shared within the meeting if you have participants who are blind or have sight loss.. What’s more, you should integrate audio description into any video you share to take the visual details and make them accessible to everyone.
As our guest blogger Fern Lulham wrote in a blog about audio description: “It needs to shape shift and morph, appealing to its audience accordingly in order to have the desired effect. Audio description is not an afterthought, but an art form in itself.”
Conclusion
If you do think your video conferences could be more accessible and you want them to be, you’ve come to the right place.
Get in contact with a member of the VoiceBox team today for a quote.