National Federation of the Blind Raises Conference Platform Concerns
Representatives of the National Federation of the Blind told the FCC of problems members have using meeting platforms. “The ‘share screen’ feature for most conferencing services is not accessible because it renders what is being displayed on the screen as…
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images that are inaccessible to screen reading software,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 12-108, recapping a virtual meeting with FCC’s Disability Rights Office staff. If the text chat feature is “accessible to a refreshable Braille display, the feature can work in harmony with the audio portion of the meeting,” the filing said. A blind person “can read the text chat via Braille and still listen to the speakers in the meeting, similarly to how a sighted individual would be able to read the text chat visually while still listening to the speakers in the meeting,” the group said: “However, this feature becomes a problem when it is only accessible to screen reading software because then there are two competing audio feeds for a blind user, making the meeting difficult to follow.” The group raised particular concerns with the accessibility of the GoTo Meeting platform. The FCC’s Disability Advisory Committee recently examined telecommunications relay services on videoconferencing platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Webex (see 2202240064).