Meeting minutes
RRSAgent ,stay
RTC Accessibility User Requirements
Accessibility of Remote Meetings
Scott: the important of remote meetings has become quite clear
… the remote meeting note complement the work on RTC accessibility user requirements
… covid19 has accelerated the move to virtual meetings
… making it a critical tool to participate in communities, work, get together with family and friends
… but that space has been lacking accessibility guidance
… we've seen in the past two years a lot of innovation in this space
… still quite a bit of room for improvements in this space
… e.g. a sign language interpreter specific view - still evolving in many platforms
… This is where this draft is coming from https://
… it makes it different from other W3C work, with quite a few different audiences involved
… e.g. for captions, you need to have support for captions in the tool
… but captions could also come from content
… e.G; sharing a powerpoint tha twould have captions - linking this to content creation
… meeting participants also need to understand what accessibility features are available and how to enable them
… what we've put together in this draft is a collection of resources looking at a range of scenarios and resources
… as it standds, the draft has a few different sections:
… - procurement - how to pick tools
… - development of tools - how to make sure a11y is incorporated, referencing WCAG, ATAG, UAAG
… - content creation - incl guidance on developing accessible presentations
… - end users: tips to support an accessible meeting
… We've also looked at different meeting types - e.g. a conference scenaroi like this one, telehealth, a hybrid event (cominging online and physical)
… other related scenarios include education
… with lecture and students which need accessible materials and tools
… quite a bit of guidance, both technical and non technical, with a range of audiences to ensure everyone involved is getting support
… For this breakout, we're looking for input on additional resources to refer, what missing information to include
… how to support additional development - e.g. sign language support, customized views for different types of accessibility needs
Judy: this document is a FPWD, targetting probably a note
… what's in flux is how to present this the best way
… it's providing an ecosystem of supporting resources
… the research question task force part of the accessible platform architectures working group
… has a series of accessibility user requirements on real-time comms, xr, synchronized media
… right now, this document is parallel to those, but we hope some of it will be integrated with those
… including with some of the documents developed by the education & outreach working group
… this includes making audio & video accessible around captions, accessible presentations
… The info in this doc has a different focus, less polished than "making audio/video accessible" which has gained a lot of visiboility during the pandemic
… a remote meeting over a video conference is a presentation to some extent - as we're doing right now
… if I was showing slides, I would need to be completely voicing those to make sure the content would come through to all participants
… incl describing complex graphics
… if there was key information for participants to take away, I would want to make sure the participants could get a copy of that if they can't see it on the screen
… that includes making it available in a shareable and accessible format, like HTML or PowerPoint
… accessibility of the content shared is important - this aligns with WCAG2.x (perceivable content)
… so this involves taking existing W3C guidance on digital accessibility
… The document is in flux, final format still being discussed
… we're trying to identify all the roles that are involved
… W3C took great care in selecting an accessible platform for this event
Judy: we've been asking conference providers on their support for WCAG
… for some of the pltaform providers, this was a new question - asking the question and engaging in the dialog is really important
… W3C is using CVent as a platform, with ongoing discussions with them on their accessibility offering
… we hope to make this document a good reference for this kind of dialogue
… for those very familiar with WCAG, you may recall there are 2 other complementary documents: authoring tool accessibility guidelines
… that includes allowing to create content through accessible UIs
… and the User Agent Accessibility Guidelines- what browsers, media players can do to make content accessible
… we have a list of relevant tips extracted from that
… e.g. making sure the control of the screen readers and video platform don't conflict
… the chat may for instance may not be as readily available to all participants due to accessibility barriers
Judy: there are quite a few other examples we could review
… I also have a set of questions for you all, and getting your reactions
… What kind of accessibility needs and barriers did you encounter early on when the world pivotted?
… has this evolved?
… which part of the guidance match the most the barriers you've encountered?
… which sections would you like us to go deeper into
CharlesL: great work! a couple of things
… I would like to see more exploration regarding the chat with screen readres
… I've been hearing a lot issues due to chat overlapping with the audio of the remote paresentation
… the other is on live captions, or close captions in general
… I haven't seen any of these online meetings doing it correctly
… especially when captions overlap the bottom section of the power point, obscuring text on the slide
… having a dedicated section on the UI would help
scott: both good points
… with screen readers, there is a lot of announcements that can announce everything (e.g. who's joining)
… there is a balance between ambient awareness vs focus
… definitely need to more
… captions are clearly problematic too - we have some guidance in the note about moving information around in dedicated areas
… not sure if that already includes captions
Judy: re chat access with accessibility needs - this varies quite a bit across teleconf platforms
… this also needs increased engagement with platform providers
<janina> We encountered a "captions on top of content in slides" preparing the slides for yesterday's Personalization slide deck. Something we'll note in TPAC feedback for the future, as it's an issue with the template.
Judy: with regard to captions, I've been in meetings where ASL interpreters are being used
… making it another window that needs to stay visible
… todya this can be obtained by asking participants to mute their video
… there is also speech recognition vs human-curated CART
… some of it can be solved by a bit of a logistical dialog
… in small settings
… in larger formats, this needs to be arranged more in advance
… I've noticed that more of the platforms have been allowing to reposition the caption windows
… not sure all platforms have that capability yet
… but we've seen real time evolution in this space
… our goal is to elevate best practices
tzviya: maybe obvious, having to have many windows open at once (e.g. here zoom + IRC)
… is a challenge for a number of people, beyond disabilities
… New features added e.g. in Zoom are not necessarily accessible (e.g. polling)
… I also wanted to ask if translations is in scope for this
Judy: this raises really important things that can be looked either as practical details, or as accessibility
… complexity, distractibility esp in stressful situations
… we're not near to addressing that in that document but it's really important
… e.g. people receiving the meeting link on their phone but needing to move to a different device
… we need to cover this better in the document
… I think a lot of us in the tech field have forgotten how hard that can be because we've figured out workarounds
… some people are using different devices for different parts of their work
<Zakim> tzviya, you wanted to ask if translations are in scope for this document
Judy: you mentioned VPAT voluntary product accessibility template
… they tend to be unilateral set of accessibility claims
… not in conjunction with specific AT or other tools you need to work with
… we also need to include considerations on cognitive accessibility
<Zakim> Judy, you wanted to respond on Charles' 2nd question
Scott: I have a paper about to be published around online learning
… getting on top of remote meetings and its associated complexity when combined with other learning tools made it hard
… the doc hasn't picked up on this yet - very good point
<Zakim> Rain, you wanted to ask about supporting cognitive and learning disabilities
Rain: +1 to tzviya that adding more features increases the complexity of the UI
… sensory overload can shut people down: this can be in the UI, this can be the screen reader reading along the chat
… motion that can happen in some of these platforms
<KimD> +1 to looking a complexity and COGA.
Rain: CVent has been stressful for lack of having the links ahead of time; the need to login at a specific time
… if we don't keep logging in
… is another issue we've faced with CVent
… Another cognitive perspective: collaboration modalities
… when there is this kind of remote meetings, there is collaboration in terms of the chat
… but there is also when people have to engage - e.g. a remote class with collaborative sticky notes, collaborative drawing
… are you also looking at that challenge?
… that different modalities are available to adapt to different disabilities, incl problem with memory, or someone more comfortable with visual vs speaking vs typing
Scott: this is my first session at TPAC; getting involved in TPAC has been tricky given timezone challenges
… the problem with time-limited access to the cvent platform has been stressful for me too
… one of the reasons why we have in this draft specifically, not just remote meeting platforms but have been looking at broader scenarios, is to pick up on how these diferent environments will need ways to interact
… e.G. different modalities to interact in an education context
Judy: great input, rain
… I want to apologize short advance notice on meeting links
… when reviewing the platform with accessibility, there are issues that can be spot in a static format
… but some of it is about the dynamic usage
… we're aware this is stressful - we'll work on improving it
… there are certain operational decisions that have accessibility implications
… ben, we would love to get your expertise on distractibility
… Re Rain's point about sticky notes, this is covered in one of the resources of the WAI EO WG on making presentations accessible
… if that particular problem isn't listed there, it should be added there
… we've started looking at certain areas like remote education, with lots of interest from UNESCO in getting more work done in that area
… this would be a massive area to go into - needs proper scoping
Scott: re translations, we've looked mainly at the provision of captioning
… text-based translations would probably be similar
… but there is also real-time translation available through audio which we haven't looked at yet
… good to add that as a point of consideration
Judy: W3C is experimenting with audio interpretation
… with text based captioning, it would probably be using the same channel with the captioning
… this may need more considerations in the doc
wilco: screen sharing is regularly painful in remote meetings
… a particular challenge is difference in resolutions
… e.g. someone presenting with a higher resolution that I would need, with very few zooming options
… on top of that, if you do zoom-in, I'm available to move into the screen and the presenters do that well, making it pretty difficult to control what you're seeing
judy: clearly another gap we should address
… beyond these 2 aspects, are there other aspects wrt screen sharing?
wilco: these are the main things; there may be something about color theme (dark vs light)
judy: when I'm in a setting where I can't see a screen share, a real time dialog tends to make it less stressful / more productive
… there are a category of items that are really tips for hosts
… this may help in some settings (e.g. smaller ones)
… not sure how to extrapolate to all settings
… any thoughts you have on that?
wilco: I think having enough options to resize and navigate in the presenter screen
Scott: as a low vision user, I use a combination of high contrast theme, zooming
… I've been in that situation several times
… color contrast is something we already recommend
… there are some third-party tools that attempt to try to extract content from slide presentations with on-the-fly OCR
… we've touched on that in the note, but we need to flesh it out
wilco: pausing the presenter screen would be another useful approach to consider
<Rain> to add to wilco's point: individuals who are sensitive to motion can also get overwhelmed by scrolling when screensharing. Also, from a cognitive perspective, high contrast can be overwhelming, so control to customize can be helpful as well
Judy: making screen sharing accessibility in different type of settings - small settings vs bigger meetings
Judy: we're also thinking about hybrid meetings - we're looking for that as well
Charles: +1 to freezing on the client side to help zooming on a specific spot
… for dial-in codes - would be great to include pausing and pin in the phone ot make it easier to log in
Daniel: thank you for a very interesting document, which will have quite an impact on the community
… re chat for screen reader users, there is also braille users
… how much thoughts have you put into braille users?
judy: we haven't discussed that too much
… are you asking for braille output in the chat function, or more broadly?
daniel: more broadly - what a platform could do is to use the standard screen reader conventions and then add the braille support
<Bert> (Often the shared screen contains mostly text. Maybe it would help if the videoconf systems were able to share such a screen in the form of HTML instead of as an image.)
judy: closing comments?
… contact me by email: jbrewer@w3.org
scott: or scott@hollier.info
<FredrikFischer> Thanks everyone for a great presentation!
<Rain> Thank you!
<FredrikFischer> Have a great conference everybody!
<marie_s> That was excellent, thank you!