Accessibility Tips for a Better Zoom/Virtual Meeting Experience

Christian Vogler, Director, Technology Access Program, Gallaudet University

The latest published version of this document can be found at https://www.deafhhtech.org/rerc/accessible-virtual-meeting-tips/

Questions? Feedback? Contact: virtualmeetings@deafhhtech.org

Executive summary:

• These tips are focused on the needs of deaf and hard of hearing participants in virtual workplace meetings
  • Many of these also have been tested in cross-disability meetings
  • Additional scenarios will be covered in future updates
• Keep meetings as small as possible
• Have well-defined roles in running the meeting, especially for larger ones (e.g., chair, turn-taking manager, note-taker)
• Turn-taking management is critical
• In larger meetings, default to video off except for chairs, interpreters, turn-taking manager, and people who have the floor
• Get a second screen, if at all possible
• Run Ethernet cables instead of WiFi, if at all possible

See also the Scope and the Change Log (last updated: March 23, 2020)

1. Tips for Running a Meeting
   1. Small groups with up to 4 people
   2. Groups with 5-7 people
   3. Groups with 8+ people
      • Communication rules for meetings with sign language participants
   4. Involving participants who use audio
      • Communication rules for meetings with a mix of sign language and audio
   5. Mixing local/remote attendees
2. Technology Tips
   1. General tips
   2. Zoom-specific tips
3. Related Resources

Where these tips come from: Telecollaboration and virtual meetings were an active research project at the Gallaudet University Technology Access Program (TAP) from 2009-2014 under the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Telecommunications Access, which was a grant-funded collaboration among the Trace Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Technology Access Program at Gallaudet University and Omnitor. These seeded the insights that led to developing and testing out more formal rules between 2011-2020. The formal rules have been applied and refined at all Federal Communications Commission meetings on disabilities since 2011, including personal participation in six different committees that met every two weeks. These meetings were all virtual and variously had a mix of deaf, hard of hearing, DeafBlind, hearing blind and hearing sighted participants. The same rules also have been applied at several conferences hosted by TAP.

Scope

This document covers the needs of people who primarily use sign language during virtual meetings at the workplace. These can be either meetings with all-sign language users, or a mix of sign language users and audio users with sign language interpreter support. Use of video relay services in virtual meetings is planned for a future update in the near-term. Additionally, many of these tips can also be applied to deaf and hard of hearing people who primarily listen and lip-read. For these, more specific guidelines may be covered in a future update, as well.

1.   Tips for Running a Meeting

Running a successful virtual meeting above all requires a different mindset: The communication and interaction dynamics are completely different from face-to-face meetings. Do not expect to just provide a Zoom link and be done with it. This is a recipe for frustration and failure.

Virtual meetings with sign language users also scale very differently from virtual meetings that are done over audio. For sign language meetings, the single best thing to do is to keep groups small. In meetings where that is not possible, there are battle-tested communication and interaction rules that will help.

The 10,000-foot overview. Each case has more details in its own section.

• Small groups with up to 4 people: Typically does not require formal meeting rules. One possible exception: if a participant’s network performs poorly.
• Groups with 5-7 people: Managing turn-taking and the floor becomes important. Typically requires a moderator to assign turns and people to not sign out of turn.
• Groups with 8+ people: Formal communication rules become important, including a video-off policy for people who currently do not have the floor.
• Meetings involving sign language and audio participants: Additional considerations for audio & interpreters apply, and adding CART is highly recommended. If some of the audio participants are deaf or hard of hearing themselves, then adding CART is a must.
• Mixed same-room and remote participants: This is an incredibly challenging setup. Not recommended, but if need be, the recommendations are described below.

Note that the person limits are not hard and fast, and that they must be evaluated on a case-by case basis.

1.1. Small groups with up to 4 people

Most of us, if not all, have regular experience with this scenario. Having all videos on screen simultaneously and having a conversation should work just fine. A couple of considerations:

1. If a participant’s connection is really poor or the meeting has to be conducted on someone’s smartphone, it may be helpful to turn video off when you are not signing to the group. Turn on the video when you have something to say, then turn off when you are done.
   • One alternative is for the meeting host to spotlight the currently active signer.
   • Another alternative is for the meeting host to clearly announce the currently active signer, and wait for the smartphone participant to select the active signer’s video feed. The active signer waits for the participant to confirm that they can proceed.
   • Both alternatives increase the cognitive load on the meeting host.
2. Make a participant the co-host in case the host loses the connection.
3. If co-hosting is not supported by the tool, the host should have a stable internet connection (e.g. cable or fiber).

1.2. Groups with 5-7 people

At this point the communication dynamics begin to change. Turn-taking control becomes important to prevent people from signing over each other:

1. The chair (or a designated participant) should manage turn-taking and the floor. Participants ask for the floor by raising their hand on video. The chair assigns the floor to people by calling out their names and mentioning who is next in the queue (much like you would do in a large face-to-face meeting)
2. Make a participant the co-host in case the host loses the connection. Set up a side channel between these two people (for example, though iMessage), in case the chair is unable to rejoin a meeting.
3. If co-hosting is not supported by the tool, the host should have a stable internet connection (e.g. cable or fiber).
4. As above, if a participant’s connection is really poor or the meeting has to be conducted on someone’s smartphone, it may be helpful to turn video off when you are not signing to the group. Turn on the video when you have something to say, then turn off when you are done. Turning on video should be considered as a request to get the floor and should await confirmation by the chair.
   1. One alternative is for the meeting chair to spotlight the currently active signer.
   2. Another alternative is for the meeting chair to clearly announce the currently active signer, and wait for the smartphone participant to select the active signer’s video feed. The active signer waits for the participant to confirm that they can proceed.
   3. Both alternatives increase the cognitive load on the meeting chair.
5. Have a person other than the chair take notes in a shared Google doc (or equivalent). With turn-taking management, the chair otherwise risks slowing down the meeting. An alternative is to record the meeting and then take notes after the fact.

1.3. Groups with 8+ people

Having all videos on screen at the same time is no longer an option. Even if everyone were to have perfect internet with smooth video (which will not be the case), the sheer amount of movement going on is too distracting, and it becomes hard to focus on the person who currently has the floor. Size of the video also becomes a concern on laptops. While Zoom lets you pin the video of a specific person to keep it large, the effort for participants to switch to the correct video to pin after someone is given the floor makes this approach unworkable (as learned in an FCC committee with 9 deaf participants).

The default policy is to have video off. Every participant should take care to turn on video after given the floor and turn off video when the interaction has been completed. The Zoom host can unilaterally turn off video of participants and request that a participant turn on video (which results in the participant getting  pop-up notice with a button to turn on video).

Only three parties should have video on at all times:

• The chair
• The person managing turn-taking and monitoring the chat box (more on that below)
• The sign language interpreters (if applicable)

Following this rule means that a very manageable maximum of four videos will be on screen at all times.

To avoid cognitive overload, a minimum of three designated roles are essential:

1. The chair: The chair is responsible for going through the agenda and keeping meetings on track. However, even the chair must defer to the person managing the turn-taking. The person managing the turn-taking should prioritize giving the floor to the chair when they request it, however.
2. The turn-taking manager: This person is responsible for determining who is asking for the floor, monitoring the chat box for comments to bring to the attention of the meeting, assigning turns in an equitable manner, and enforcing the video-on-off policy. This person needs to be proficient with the Zoom chat and video tools and also should be proficient with the recommended hand raising tool (more below).
3. Note taker: Because of the challenges with visual attention, it is recommended that the note taker be separate from the chair.
   

The chair and turn-taking manager should have a close rapport. A side channel (e.g. iMessage) is quasi mandatory, for those situations when meeting dynamics must be managed, or when one of these two people loses the connection. The chair and turn-taking manager also should both be made meeting co-hosts.

1.3.1.         Hand raising tool

While Zoom has a built-in hand raising tool, it has two limitations that make it less than ideal. The first is that there is no real queue, so it is hard to tell who asked for the floor first, and therefore hard to make communication equitable. (This has been a problem even with meetings where the chairs were fully aware of this issue.) The second is that it is a separate content pane in Zoom and reduces the screen area for videos. (Note: this is less of an issue with two screens.)

On FCC committees, we have had great success with https://tohru.raisingthefloor.org – while it is a web browser window, it can be easily set up on a second screen without reducing the video area, and also be used from separate phones, tablets, and so on. The tool is free and anyone can create a moderator account for one-time or recurring meetings.

TOHRU has powerful queue management, and has buttons for indicating what type of interaction the participant is asking for. This does not only confer accessibility benefits, but in our collective experience, benefits everyone.

The group should determine whether this tool is the best option. Alternatives are the Zoom tool despite its limitations, or typing in the chat box to ask for the floor.

1.3.2.         Communication rules for participants

These rules should be shared both ahead of the meeting and then repeated at the beginning of the meeting during roll call:

1. Please use the hand-raising tool (see calendar invite for URL and log-in).
   1. Take pauses as needed to keep the pacing of the meeting accessible for everyone.
   2. Remember to lower your hand when your turn is over.
2. Please wait until the Chair has recognized you as having the floor.
3. Only one person has the floor at a time.
4. If using video, please default to leaving your camera off unless and until you are given the floor by the Chair. At that point, you can click “start video.” Please click “stop video” once you are done signing your comment or question.

1.3.3.         Tips for the turn-taking manager/chair

1. If there is a back and forth dialogue developing, consider giving the floor in turn to the two parties in the dialogue until a resolution has been reached. Something like: “Bobbi, would you like to respond to this?”
2. If using the TOHRU hand raising tool and a person has indicated an “answer” or a “proposal” consider giving priority to this person, even if they are not first in the queue. (That even applies if a dialogue is not yet resolved.)
3. Lower hands immediately if the participant forgets to do so after their turn.
4. Call out the queue (and prioritized floor time as per the above) when you give the floor to a new person. Exception: When managing a dialogue, call out the queue only after the dialogue is resolved.
5. Monitor the chat box. I cannot stress this enough. This is the most common mistake made by people who are new to hosting virtual meetings. People use the chat box for all kinds of reasons, such as when they have technical difficulties, they can’t raise their hand, etc. The turn-taking manager is responsible for reading out comments in the chat box and deciding when to do so. A chat box comment should be treated as an integral part of the queue with the same types of priorities as the above four points.

1.4. Meetings involving participants using a mix of sign language and audio

Most of the setup considerations are the same as those for large meetings with 8+ participants. The addition of audio creates some additional wrinkles, and impacts the communication rules. These rules are especially important if some of the audio participants are deaf or hard of hearing themselves.

At the same time, the addition of audio also offers an opportunity to add remote CART. Even if none of the audio participants are deaf or hard of hearing themselves, we should take advantage of CART every time we can. It greatly eases the cognitive load, because you can look away, temporarily lose focus, etc. – without losing track of what is happening during the meeting. If remote CART is offered, a separate web page on StreamText is best. While Zoom has support for piping in captions, you cannot read back the way you can on StreamText. A second screen comes in very handy; alternatively a phone or tablet side by side with the computer also works well for viewing captions on StreamText.

Sign language interpreter video should always be on, as mentioned in the section for large meetings.

1.4.1.         Communication rules for meetings involving both sign language and audio

1. Please use the hand-raising tool (see calendar invite for URL and log-in).
   1. Take pauses as needed to keep the pacing of the meeting accessible for everyone.
   2. Remember to lower your hand when your turn is over.
2. Please wait until the Chair has recognized you as having the floor.
3. Only one person has the floor at a time.
4. Please speak slowly and clearly.
5. Please identify yourself before commenting (e.g., “this is Tommy”)
6. If using audio, please do not put the call on hold as this could result in all of the participants hearing your phone’s background music disrupting the call.
7. If using audio, please mute your microphone/phone when not commenting and unmute when commenting.
8. If using your phone to connect, please do not speak on speakerphone.  We believe that when people call in and try to speak while their phones are on speakerphone, this leads to echoing and poor audio quality
9. If using video, please default to leaving your camera off unless and until you are given the floor by the Chair. At that point, you can click “start video.” Please click “stop video” once you are done signing your comment or question.

1.4.2.         Tips for the turn-taking manager/chair for hearing meetings

All the tips for large meetings apply. In addition:

1. Set up the meeting (in the Zoom settings) to default to people joining muted.
2. Work with the interpreters to detect audio issues, and remind participants to mute.
3. Even interpreters need to mute their microphones when they are not voicing for a participant.
4. The hosts can force a person to mute. In FCC disability-related meetings typically the backup interpreter has been assigned this responsibility (which means that the interpreters also were made co-hosts).

1.5. Mixed local/remote participants in the same room

The first rule is: don’t do this type of meeting if you can avoid it. It’s hard. Like – really hard.

But if it must be done, the easiest way is if every participant brings their own laptop and treats the meeting the same as a large virtual meeting, with the same communication and camera rules. Pay special attention to ensure that the remote participants are following and that local participants in the same room don’t get carried away.

If participants are not using their own laptops:

Test the technology one hour before the meeting starts!!! It can take that long to solve problems with cameras, audio (if hearing people join), and work out room-specific logistics.

In a room that has multiple cameras, assign a dedicated person to control the cameras on people. The camera control person can be the turn-taking manager.

If in other rooms (e.g. the JSAC MPR at Gallaudet University): Now we’re really going into the weeds. You need a technology team to plan and to work closely with the chair, and be present during the meeting. This presentation has information on how we pulled off such meetings successfully, starting on slide 13.

2.   Technology Tips

In short: a second screen provides the biggest productivity boost for virtual meetings. A close second is running an Ethernet cable to your computer.

2.1 General Technology Tips

2.1.1 Second Screen

Use a second screen with your computer if possible. A second screen means that you can see the participants and edit a document/view a web page/watch a captioning transcript/… at the same time.

• If you don’t have a monitor, but have a TV at your home, consider using it as a second screen for meetings only (so that the kids don’t complain too much 😊). I tend to put the document/web page/CART transcript there, and keep the video on my main screen.
• A long HDMI cable (available online or in many stores) lets you sit at a comfortable distance if you use the TV as a second screen.

2.1.2 Ethernet cable

Even if you have a mesh WiFi at home, running an Ethernet cable can make a huge difference, by reducing video freezes and glitches. A 50 ft cable can be had for $11 – e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00WD017GQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 There is no need to go fancy, if this is a temporary setup. At my home I just let it loose, like in the picture below.

My speed test changed from a jittery 65 MBit/s to a stable 150 MBit/s after I did this.

• Cat likes to chew cables? Pepper paste works wonders. 🌶️😾😂

2.1.3 Adding Captions

If a meeting features interpreters, also adding remote CART (real-time captions) is a great investment. The reduction in cognitive load for participants is significant if you are able to read up on things that were missed while glancing away or had a video freeze.

Zoom has support for piping in captions (applicable only if we use remote CART for some meetings), but I recommend using the StreamText web site instead, because otherwise you cannot read back. A second screen comes in very handy; alternatively a phone or tablet side by side with the computer also works well for viewing captions on StreamText.

2.2 Zoom-Specific Tips

2.2.1 Co-Hosting

Some of the practices discussed in this document recommend co-hosting to lessen the cognitive load on the meeting chair, and to make meetings more resilient against connection failures. Co-hosting needs to be enabled in the Zoom web account settings; otherwise making a participant the host just will transfer hosting privileges from one person to another. This can be done by logging into the Zoom account and going to basic in-meeting settings (e.g., https://gallaudet.zoom.us/profile/setting for Gallaudet University organization members), and checking that the Co-host option is turned on.

2.2.2 Spotlighting

Spotlighting is a technique where the meeting chair or turn-taking manager can select which video all participants focus on in the meeting. This feature can compensate for Zoom’s lack of ability to focus the video on the currently active signer (which is a significant disparity to Zoom’s focus on the currently active speaker in hearing meetings). Instructions on how to spotlight can be found here: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115000505583-Pin-or-Spotlight-Video

Practical experience has shown that spotlighting tends to overwhelm the chair and/or the turn-taking manager. If this feature is to be used, a better solution may be to designate a third person with host privileges to follow the turn-taking manager’s cue on which video to spotlight.

The tentative recommendation is to use the video-on-off policy instead, described in the section on meetings with 8+ people. This approach distributes responsibility equally among all participants instead of concentrating it on a single person.

2.2.3 Recording a Meeting

Recording a meeting can lessen the cognitive load on a note-taker in ASL meetings, where visual attention needs to be split between the video and the notes. In Zoom, the view that is active at the time the recording is started determines what the recorded view will look like for the remainder of the meeting, even if the view is later changed. This means that at the time you hit the record button, you will want the meeting to be in gallery view. This also means that auto-recording in the meeting options is not an appropriate setting – it could result in recording only the host and no one else.

Local recording takes up disk space on the computer of the person who is recording, but is available within minutes after the meeting ends and can be shared to cloud storage almost immediately.

For members of the Gallaudet organization, cloud-based recording is available on the user’s Echo360 account, and may take up to several hours to process.

2.2.4 Screen Sharing

Participants can view a screen share and the video gallery in side-by-side view and adjust the relative size of each part. However, the person sharing the screen has no option for viewing the gallery, which limits the usefulness of this feature for signing participants.

The easiest option is to share a cloud document and edit/review it in real-time, such as a Google doc. This approach scales for all screen sizes – since a participant can just switch between the Zoom and Google or Browser apps -, and is especially easy to implement if a second screen is available.

Another option, at the cost of needing more hardware, is to use two separate computers. The person sharing the screen joins Zoom from both computers, and sets up one for gallery view, and the other for the screen share.

2.2.5 Hand Raising

The recommended tool for large meetings is TOHRU, as described above. Zoom’s hand raising capabilities are rather limited: the hosts cannot raise the hand themselves, there are multiple steps, and managing a queue also is essentially nonexistent. On the other hand, it is immediately available to anyone joining a Zoom meeting, and does not require learning a new tool.

In Zoom, raising the hand requires first going to the participant list and then selecting the “Raise Hand” button. The host will see this participant move up in their “Manage Participants” list with a blue hand icon next to their name. Hosts can lower a participant’s hand by clicking on this icon and should do so after that person’s turn has ended.

An alternative to hand raising in Zoom is to co-opt meeting reactions. Participants can access reactions with one click from the meeting options (rather than doing two steps through the participant list followed by hand raising). This requires the turn-taking manager to monitor all videos closely, since reactions are transient and disappear from the gallery view after a few seconds.

3. Related Resources

• DHH-RERC COVID-19 Technology Resources
• UCL Deafness Cognition and Language Research Centre’s New Accessible Remote Working Guide for BSL interpreters, deaf and hearing participants
• Jo Wootten’s Tips for Working Remotely When You are Deaf with BSL Videos
• Catharine McNally’s Accessibility Strategies for Deaf / Hard of Hearing People in Remote Meetings
• Tina Childress’s Captioning options for Videoconferencing and Learning Management Systems

Change Log

• 3/23/2020: Added links to related resources
• 3/19/2020: First public release
• 3/18/2020: Cleaned up comments for public release; added scope
• 3/17/2020: Split tech tips into general and Zoom-specific ones.
• 3/16/2020: Added notes about Zoom’s support for co-hosting, notes about recording

Acknowledgments

The contents of this document were in part supported by funding from the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of Education, grant number H133E090001 (RERC on Telecommunications Access) and a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR grant number 90REGE0013). NIDILRR is a Center within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents of this document do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL, HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.