By: Jay Wyant, Office of Accessibility

Conferences are a great way to:

• Learn new information. 
• Increase your professional network.
• Energize your passion about your work.

Event organizers and vendors have responded to the pandemic by creating virtual conferences that attempt to fulfill those same goals.

Virtual conferences are a great opportunity to ensure full inclusion. Some people with disabilities cannot travel to conferences. Others may have difficulty with group conversations or asking questions at live events. Virtual conferences can help overcome those barriers.

However, if inclusion isn’t designed into the virtual conferencing system, it may unintentionally: 

• Exclude many potential attendees. 
• Have a negative impact on an individual’s ability to advance in their career. 
• Limit the reach and earning potential of conference providers.

We asked some of our digital accessibility coordinators for their advice to conference vendors and organizers on how to ensure accessible, fully inclusive events.

First, WCAG

Everyone’s first answer is, “Follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Level AA (and for US vendors, Section 508) guidelines.” Better yet, follow WCAG 2.1 Level AA even if it isn’t officially required by some organizations.

Include your audience in the design

Oftentimes a company or an organization new to accessibility doesn’t know where to start. They may need to have a better understanding of how their work impacts other users. 

Consider accessibility from the start when you design and planning your conference, Rita Williams-Larson, Digital Accessibility Coordinator for MNIT Partnering with Minnesota Pollution Control says, “Use experts with practical experience and training in accessibility.” That includes both technical experts and people with disabilities. If you’re buying a conferencing tool, include your experts when evaluating potential vendors.

Keyboard access: to all components

Virtual conferences can be incredibly complex. In addition to live presentations and slides, many also offer features that include:

• Breakout rooms.
• Vendor booths.
• Networking sessions.
• Live polling.

An easy way to support accessibility is to ensure that users can access all these features and functions without a mouse. Test using basic keyboard functions such as tab, spacebar, and enter key to sign in, select activities, and navigate through all functions. Systems that support full keyboard use are much more inclusive.

As Lolly Lijewski, Human Services’ Digital Accessibility Coordinator noted, “Make sure the platform is accessible from start to finish. From registration to evaluation.”

Magnification support

People attend virtual conferences in all sorts of ways, from phones to multiple large monitors. Some of them will need to zoom in or use screen magnification software to read text or operate controls. Conferencing systems need to include key features such as:

• Responsive design that enables users to access sites on any size screen from a smartphone to large monitor.
• Users need to be able to select a component such as the chat pane and enlarge the text view. All too often, systems only allow you to magnify the main window by shrinking everything else.

Common fails

After that, according to our digital accessibility coordinators, we can separate the most common accessibility fails at conferences into systems and operations:

Systems

• Automated captions with no option for CART (live human-generated captions).
• Human-generated captions still remain the gold standard.
• Chat audio interfering with speaker audio when using certain types of assistive technology. Or there’s no way to access the chat via assistive technology.
  •  Test your conferencing platform to see if an assistive technology user can control access to the chat.
  • Test to make sure that an assistive technology user can control where sound comes from – the chat or event.
    • If this is not possible, ask attendees to avoid using chat during the event. Instead, consider alternatives such as a Q&A pane or direct messages to a host.

• Requiring a CAPTCHA or other security tool for registration or login.

• Some security tools are not accessible to assistive technology users.
• Consider using other tools such as email verification for registration.

• Not allowing users to select or switch breakout sessions.
• Transitions to unexpected or unwanted breakout sessions can cause difficulties for some users.

Operation

• Inaccessible handouts can be a challenge if you have volunteer presenters.
  • In advance, you can provide them with links to free accessible document trainingor quick tips for accessible PowerPoint slides (PDF).
  • Test PDFs for accessibility before posting them, and have someone available to remediate them if needed.
• Presenter doesn’t describe their slides.
  • Health’s Digital Accessibility Coordinator Becky Bernauer noted, “Tell all presenters to consider that some may be attending by phone. Presenters need to describe all relevant visuals, even those provided for comedic or dramatic effect.”
• Uploaded videos without captions.
  • This should be a requirement. Let the presenter know in advance that you do not allow videos that are not captioned.
  • Ideally, make it a checkbox in the upload program. This will remind presenters to only use captioned videos.

Practice makes perfect

Suppose you’ve done everything you can to buy or build a world-class conferencing platform. Now you’re running a conference. You have speakers selected and scheduled. How do you make sure everything goes as expected? In a word—practice. 

Anne Sittner Anderson, Digital Accessibility Coordinator for the Commission of Deaf, Deafblind and Hard of Hearing says, “Host prep meetings with organizers, those who are running the platform, and the CART provider to ensure the equipment is compatible and works successfully. Agree on who is doing what role and task, and make sure everyone has the equipment they need for a successful conference.”

Accessible technology is only part of the solution. Conference organizers need to plan for, practice, and use inclusive best practices.

Going hybrid 

What’s different about running a hybrid conference with both in-person and virtual attendees? Our coordinators noted several key challenges:

• Audience participation: when in-person audience members ask questions, they must either speak into a microphone (preferred) or the presenter must repeat the question before answering.
• Interpreter placement: Sittner Anderson noted, “Ensure interpreters are positioned to voice or sign both presenters and audience members [in] whatever language they use (spoken and signed). It can become a muddle if not planned well.”
• Handouts: if there are paper handouts, they also need to be available online and accessible.

Keep improving

Virtual conferences are at the leading edge of digital technology. Many conferences are already using augmented reality (AR) tools, such as virtual rooms with avatars for attendees. As demand for online conferences grows, vendors are exploring more ways to simulate the live experience. For example, combining aspects of virtual reality (VR) and AR to create three-dimensional rooms, the ability to use VR headsets, and more. There are no specific accessibility guidelines for these environments, but they must still be accessible for all participants.

Wrapping it up

Virtual conferences are a complex challenge to design and plan even without accessibility. A short newsletter article cannot cover everything you need to know. If you don’t have accessibility experts and people with disabilities in house, consider contracting for those resources. Then make sure you involve those resources in every aspect of the project – from “Welcome” to “Thank you for attending.”

Some extra reading

Accessible meetings for all

Engaging and accessible social media

Accessible best practices for using chat in online meetings

An accessible future - XR

Remote meeting guide

Accessible remote meetings