Visual descriptions of speaker for visual impairment accessibility

[katalsop]

I belong to a disability advocacy group and we each give a visual description of ourselves when we speak in our zoom meetings. Is there a way to tag a visual description to each participant (maybe similar to how you can with pronouns) so that people who use screen readers can access the visual description? Sometimes they miss it or we forget to give it and it would be great to have something that helps.

[Ray_Harwood]

Hey, @katalsop - I've been thinking about this a couple of days! Sorry for not answering sooner.

For static, individual descriptions of each person, the only way I think this might work is to add the description in with the displayed name.  I'm not sure how many characters are allowed, or whether screen readers would pick this up.

For active descriptions of things happening on screen (screen share and user camera videos), the thought I had is to use the Language Translation feature.  See this Zoom Support article for details on how to set this up and use it.  As part of enabling it for the user/group/account, add a "Language" something like this: 

Then edit the meeting, click the Options at the bottom, then add an "interpreter" who will do the visual descriptions over audio (this is optional; you can do this inside the meeting, with nobody "pre-assigned"):

Then once in the meeting, you can assign ANYONE to the role of "visual interpreter":

Then attendees needing the visual descriptions can select the "translation" feature:

They will continue to hear the original "English" audio, but the "visual translator" can interject any time something is happening on screen that should be described. 

I hope that will work for you.  I recommend trying it out on a test meeting.  If it does work the way I envisioned it, come back and let me know!  This approach could be used anywhere!!

[katalsop]

Thank you!!! I will definitely try it out then let you know! 

[BrBearOFS]

This is a great idea !   The one thing I see that might be an issue for this is that if this is happening live, and the person who is visually challenged is listening to the speaker,  if the captions are being recorded, they would not be able to listen to the caption at the same time that speaker is speaking or they would miss what the speaker was saying.    It would however work for a "playback" of the recording .. AND Thank you for working through this process ! 

[Ray_Harwood]

Thanks, @BrBearOFS.  There may be a work-around of sorts for the visually impaired component of your audience, if you wanted to invest a little time working through the details and testing.

The "live translation" feature is available on all Business and Enterprise accounts, but only available to Pro accounts if the host also has a Webinar License attached to them.  Note this is the live translation feature with voice-over, not live transcription with text overlays.  See this Zoom Support article for details:

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360034919791-Using-Language-Interpretation-in-your-meeting... 

You could have one person as the "Visual Translator", describing what is happening on the screen, and the visually impaired attendees could select that in the Interpretation menu that appears.  Attendees listening to the separate channel will hear the "translated audio" (the speaker's description of the on-screen actions)  and also hear the original audio at a lower volume.  I don't know of anyone that has tried this, but if you have frequent needs to accommodate visually impaired attendees, this might be an option for you.

If you do try it, please report back with whatever successes or challenges you have!

[BrBearOFS]

HI Ray.. 

Thank you for checking in with me today..   So here is my issue.. I  myself only have the free account , however our community may have one of the higher level accounts.. I have to research that.   but just to be clear.. in order for this to work,  they must have BOTH a Business  AND PRO level business account ? 

I am working as diligently as I am able to make our meetings as accessible as possible to people who have all sorts of disabilities,  Having an audio descriptor for images etc I can see will be a 2 fold process, get the data right, and training the presenter to include the descriptions etc. 

Again thank you so much for you attempting to help us. 

Mark

[Ray_Harwood]

Hey, Mark... glad to help.  Yeah, it's complicated at first.

So... the Language Interpretation Feature is included in all Business and Enterprise accounts.  In order to have it in a Pro, account, however, the Pro account (the user scheduling the meeting) must also have a Webinar license.  [I don't understand the "why" of this requirement... but it's pretty clear from the Support article I mentioned... and I also have a Pro account -- one account with a Webinar license, and one without, and I know the Language Interpretation feature is only active on the user account with the Webinar license.]

Let me know if you have any other questions.  I'm lurking around the Zoom Community most days! 😎