What is accessibility, and why is it important? If your organization is like most, your meetings are comprised of people with different abilities, including those with varying levels of vision or hearing loss. To enable the most productive collaboration with colleagues, customers, and partners, you need to use communication tools that are accessible to the broadest group of users. This is especially true when it comes to video meetings. The following checklist will help you evaluate your video conferencing platform from an accessibility standpoint and address areas for improvement.

1. The Join Experience

Joining a video meeting should be easy for all users. Minimal clicks, clear instructions, and multiple connection methods are all very important. Video conferencing solutions should allow participants to log in to video meetings on any device using a browser, a desktop app, or mobile app. These solutions make meetings more accessible than those that require downloads or provide only one option to join a meeting. Video meeting solutions that give users multiple options and have a straightforward join process will be most accessible to your users.

2. Meeting UI

A clean and uncluttered meeting user interface (UI) supports a good user experience for all users. Icons that are clearly visible and understood by everyone joining the meeting provide easy access to all functionality within the meeting. Key meeting actions like hand raising, muting, and video control should be closely grouped together and prominently labeled. These vital functions, along with other supporting functions, should be organized in an intuitive manner, so that users with limited familiarity with video meetings can participate in the meeting successfully. Being aware of these accessibility aspects of the meeting UI go a long way toward offering the best user experience available to meeting participants of all ages and vision abilities.

3. Audio Quality and Captions

Audio quality is one of the most critical components of the video meeting experience, and it is also one with frequent accessibility issues. For users who are hard of hearing, it is important for video conferencing apps to include features that close this accessibility gap. Turning on auto captions during meetings can empower those users who have difficulty hearing or experience other auditory challenges. It should be straightforward to access and use helpful features such as closed captioning, as well as all volume and device controls, to ensure that all meeting participants have a smooth audio experience. To learn more about captions' role in creating accessible videos, you can read this guide on video accessibility.

4. Video Features

Your video conferencing apps should give your meeting participants a variety of video control options. When users join a meeting, they should be able to view the speaker clearly and have choices as to how they want to view other participants. Meeting hosts should be able to leverage advanced features like setting virtual backgrounds or streaming the meeting with minimal clicks. All users benefit from having the ability to check their video quality and find out if there is an issue with their camera. These video features help participants of all abilities get the most out of their video meeting experience. Similarly, video asset management software ensures that video content is organized, easily accessible, and optimized for streamlined sharing and collaboration after the meeting concludes.

5. Recordings

One aspect of accessibility that is often overlooked is the ability to record meetings. Not everyone can keep up with all the content and discussions during a meeting, and there are times when our memory fails us. Recordings can also be great for those users who might need to review the meeting at a later time in order to take next steps. The recording files should be easy to find and archive in local or cloud storage without too many steps. Finally, it helps to be able to easily share recordings with others. For example, share settings can be set to automatically send everyone in the meeting a copy of the recording or enable users to share a link to the file that can be easily accessed on any device for a limited time.

6. Chat

Chat within video meeting apps helps with transparency, collaboration, and understanding of meeting content. Presenters can share links to websites, videos, or documents, allowing others to comment or otherwise add context to the meeting topic. Video meeting apps that include the ability to chat privately with individual meeting participants, or communicate with all participants at once, give users multiple ways to engage with others and facilitate more extensive discussions. Thinking about chat as a means to bridge access gaps within meetings can be important to your colleagues, partners, and customers.

8x8 and Video Conferencing

Better accessibility creates better customer and employee experiences. It’s important to ensure that all of your partners, customers, and employees with varying degrees of dexterity, vision, or hearing can participate fully in all of your meetings. The right video conferencing solution helps to strengthen your communications and enable interactions that lead to deep and productive business relationships. While the above list is non-exhaustive, it will hopefully get you started thinking about accessibility within your video meetings.

8x8 is a leader in communications and connects teams around the world. 8x8 Meet can be accessed on any device or browser, features a clean user interface, and includes accessibility features like closed captioning. Learn more about what 8x8 Meet can do for your teams.