Event accessibility

As the event and marketing industries continue to rely on digital communications to connect with audiences, it’s important to ensure that virtual events are able to remove barriers that people might face in the physical world. The following article contains pieces of information that should be given a thought when putting together your next virtual or hybrid event.

Captions

When using the Live Studio or RTMP as your room video mode, you can enable the Closed Captions and make the content of the sessions accessible!

How can I enable the closed captions function on my activity?

To enable the closed caption function in an activity follow the steps in the gif below:

1. First go to Agenda > Activities > select an activity and click the Edit button in the top right corner
2. Then scroll down to find the Room video modes and choose between Live Studio and RTMP streaming
3. After choosing one of the Room video modes, scroll down to the Closed Captions feature and enable the feature in the checkbox
4. Click End in the top right corner to save the changes.

Once you have activated the Closed Captions feature in the platform, you will also be able to activate them when logged into the activity. To do so, simply click on the Captions icon in the lower right corner of the activity screen.

Automatic transcriptions and translations

Another alternative to the closed captions is the live AI-generated transcriptions based on speech recognition may prove a viable option. Our Speech to Text Transcription feature combines both speech recognition and live translation, which means your virtual events can have real-time subtitles in multiple languages during your sessions. 

Sign-language interpreter

Sign language interpreters can use our language interpretation channel to make your event more inclusive, delivering an engaging experience for everyone. Please ensure the interpreters check out this article before going live.

Tabbing Navigation

Navigate between focusable elements (or modals) using the tab key is an easy task within our platform. Pressing the Tab button will focus on the next element, pressing Shift + Tab will focus on the previous element, pressing enter will activate the selected element, pressing Esc will exit the modal being explored, and moving the arrows up/down/left/right will scroll the pages. The order of focusing is based on physical order, being also cyclical, which means that the tabbing will cycle to the first/last element when moving away from the last/first element.

Best Practices for speakers

• Ensure Clarity of Visuals and Sounds: Ensuring audio-visual quality is a key part of accessibility. Speakers should be well-lit and have their microphones tested beforehand. Also, keep background noise to a minimum and avoid speakers talking over each other.
• Read polls, chats, and questions out loud: Guarantee speakers read questions and replies for other attendees aloud. Also, ensure plenty of time is given to their answers.
• Describe your slides: Ask speakers to take a moment to describe their slides to the audience, making sure they summarize key graphs, images, and videos.
• Check the color contrast of slides: Ensure your speaker's slides have enough color contrast between text and background. Using a contrast checker tool may be helpful here. Ask Google to search for available options, many of them are free.
• Provide your slides ahead of time: Providing your slides before the presentation can be of great help to participants. Check this article for more information on how to share files with your participants before, during, and after your sessions.