UMass Boston

Online Meeting Accessibility

Online meetings have become essential to how we teach, learn, work, and connect. They break down geographic barriers and bring people together across distances. But without proper accessibility considerations, these digital spaces can create new barriers.

When meetings aren’t accessible, we unintentionally exclude people from full participation. This impacts students who may miss critical information for many reasons:

  • A student might be deaf or hard of hearing and need captions to follow along
  • Someone with low vision might be unable to see visual content without descriptions
  • Those with learning disabilities may need additional time to process information
  • Non-native English speakers might struggle to follow complex terminology
  • People with slow internet connections may experience audio dropouts
  • Anyone joining from a noisy environment might have trouble hearing every word
  • A neurodivergent student such as someone with Autism or ADHD might find it overstimulating to have their camera on all of the time. 

Before Your Meeting

Send your materials ahead of time. When you share slides or documents in advance, everyone can follow along during your presentation. This especially helps people using screen readers who can’t access screen-shared content.

Make sure all materials you share are accessible:

Accessible Use of Zoom

Learn more about Zoom accessibility from Classroom Technology and AV Services.

Turn on Automatic Captions

  1. Go to Zoom Web Portal
  2. Select Settings
  3. Choose In Meeting (Advanced)
  4. Enable Live Transcription

Remember that automatic captions aren’t perfect. For important meetings, consider having a human captioner.

Make Zoom Chat Accessible

  • Use clear language in chat messages
  • Read aloud questions that come in through chat
  • Save the chat for people to review later

Turn on Screen Reader Alerts

  1. Go to Settings
  2. Select Accessibility
  3. Turn on Screen Reader Alerts

Accessible Use of Microsoft Teams

Turn on Live Captions

  1. Join or start a meeting
  2. Click the three-dot menu (More options)
  3. Select “Turn on live caption”

For Recorded Meetings

  1. Open the recording
  2. Click “CC” to enable closed captions

Make Teams Chat Accessible

  • Enable in-meeting chat for all participants
  • Use simple, direct language
  • Repeat questions from chat before answering

During Any Online Meeting

Speak clearly and at a moderate pace. This helps everyone follow along, including people using captions or interpreters.

Describe what you're showing on screen. Say “Click the blue Submit button in the top right corner” instead of “Click here.”

Test your audio before starting. Everyone relies on hearing you clearly. Both Zoom and Teams have tools to test your microphone before joining.

Use a good quality microphone and reduce background noise. Consider using headphones with a built-in microphone for clearer sound.

Add a profile picture to your account. This helps identify you when your camera is off.

Learn More About Online Meeting Accessibility

Find additional resources about accessibility: