Making online events accessible

The University’s Equality and Diversity Unit has compiled a calendar of equality and diversity dates, including significant religious festivals, which may assist you in setting dates. Please note, this is not an exhaustive list. Please consider your audience and do some research using trusted sources to explore appropriate dates when planning events for a group that may have protected characteristics. 

Select event timings, based on who your target audience is, e.g. if it is all-staff, your event should fall within core working hours of 10am-3pm, to be accessible to most staff.

Announce your event in good time. Some people may have to make more complex arrangements in order to attend.    

Make sure your publicity material is available in multiple accessible formats. Web pages should comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (scroll down the page).  

If you are sending your invitations via Outlook, be sure to switch your accessibility tracker on (available on Office 365 via Review tab). This will highlight any parts of your email that you need to change to make it accessible. If you are using Adestra, ensure that you have your ‘alt tag’ for alternative text for images turned on. 

• Use software that creates an accessible registration form, e.g. Microsoft Forms, which is University approved, and has an immersive reader facility that is also suitable for screen readers.  

• When producing a registration form it is imperative to ensure delegates have an opportunity to tell you of any specific individual requirements. For example, personal support, access or dietary requirements. Let guestsknow what will be available and ask if there are any other ways that you could meet their needs. 

• Provide a range of alternative registration options. For example, online, telephone, text and email.   

• Once a delegate has informed you about their requirements, it is appropriate to contact them   to talk through their specific requirements for the event. This is usually welcomed and eases anxieties. 

• Inform participants in good time if difficulties are encountered making individual arrangements. 

Use joining instructions to set the scene for attendees, giving them relevant information to prepare them and reduce any anxieties, communicating that this event is open to them: 

• Provide relevant information on venue facilities, including car parking, hearing loops, quiet spaces etc. 

• For more information, see: Creating accessible documents | Communications Hub.

For guidance on booking speakers and moderators at online events please refer to the planning and running an accessible virtual event guidance.   

Book a briefing call with your speakers and moderators on run through best practices for accessible presenting;  

• For those who are lip reading, it is important for the speaker to be facing the audience without any obstructions so that attendees have a good view of the speaker. 

• Brief speakers to fully describe images and diagrams and to read out any quotes etc – rather than inviting attendees to read them  

• Ensure the use of high contrast slides to aid attendees with colour-blindness, visual impairments or neurodiversity.  

• Ask your speakers to use large fonts and minimise the amount of text on each slide.  

• Speak slowly, but not too slowly – keeping an even pace where possible. Control the speed of animations to ensure adequate description is possible.  

• Ensure videos are captioned. Consider live captioning; there are a variety of companies that can do this. 

• Ensure that the Q&A is audibly accessible. 

• Consider recording the session, so that attendees can view/hear the speaker at their own pace and watch online if they were unable to attend in person. Be sure to consult the rules around consent for filming/recording sessions, https://compliance.admin.ox.ac.uk/photography-and-gdpr-toolkit. 

• Think about transcribing the session(s) in addition to, or instead of, a full film or recording. Again, think about consent and the speakers involved. GPPR policies prevail, and the toolkit above should be consulted.   

• Keep in mind that your presenters may also have accessibility needs. Talk through their needs, preferencesand comfort with the facilities available. 

• Ask your speakers to use headphones or a decent microphone to ensure the best sound quality possible and test this on the briefing call. 

At the start of the online event: 

• Recap how you would like attendees to use cameras / mics / chat or Q&A functions.

• Confirm captioning and whether a recording or transcript will be available post-event.

For those using a screen reader, the chat function in both Microsoft Teams and Zoom can be difficult to follow. If there is a Q&A in your online event, try using the Q&A box instead. This allows the audience to submit questions to the host, the host can choose to publish those questions, as well as to either orally respond or to type the answer. Simple instructions for Microsoft Teams Q&A are available online. This facility is also available in Zoom.

If you plan to show any documents during the online event, or if you want to share your screen showing documents produced with any other Microsoft Office products, Microsoft has a useful accessibility checker. The accessibility checker (available in Office 365) can be used on a day-to-day basis, even when sending an email, and is a good way to learn the principles of ensuring you are communicating in an accessible way. Simple to use guidelines on how to use this function are available. Guidelines for Zoom Accessibility are available too. 

Live captions can be used to aid those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or for those who are trying to work in a noisy environment. If you are using Microsoft Teams for your online event, you can simply turn captions on or off if you are the meeting host, and individual guests can also choose to turn on captions privately. This information should be included in the joining instructions that you send to your audience. Instructions on how to use this feature are available. It is worth noting that for the deaf community the AI automated captions are ok to a point, but their success will depend on the content and how technical it is. 

To get the most out of live captions, you should ensure background noise is kept to a minimum, and wherever possible one person speaks at a time. Please note that live captions cannot be recorded in Microsoft Teams, and currently this facility is only an option for English speakers.

Providing a recording with captioning can be invaluable for some attendees, and particularly so if there were sound issues at the live event. Be aware that you must keep GDPR compliance in mind. There must be a legitimate reason to record or transcribe, and/or speakers should have given consent, see: https://compliance.admin.ox.ac.uk/photography-and-gdpr-toolkit. Both Microsoft Teams and Zoom have the facility for recording online events. Please see below for useful links: 

• Recording on Microsoft Teams
• Recording on Zoom

Add captions to your recording 

Once the event has finished you can upload the recording to Panopto which will auto generate the captioning. You will need to review this and make edits where necessary as it does not always pick up the correct words, particularly acronyms and names. Following this you can create a link to the video to share in a follow up email to those who registered for the event (whether they attended or not). This is also an opportunity to share a feedback form where you could gather information on how accessible guests felt the event was.