When hosting meetings or teaching classes using online meeting platforms such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams, hosts must do several things to ensure that online classes and meetings are accessible to all participants:
- Optimize the accessibility features in the chosen platform.
- Orient audience to accessibility features available to them.
- Understand the process for requesting and scheduling ASL interpreters and live captioning from Disability Resources for your online events.
- Communicate about and share meeting resources in accessible formats.
Meeting hosts and online instructors should familiarize themselves with accessibility features in the meeting tool of their choice and enable automated captions, transcripts, and other accessibility features so attendees can take full advantage of them.
Optimize the platform’s tools
Acquaint attendees with platform accessibility features
Meeting hosts and online instructors should acquaint attendees with accessibility features they can choose for themselves, including showing or hiding Closed Captions, showing a live transcript, and other features.
It is helpful to have a script that can be shared in two ways: (1) Read aloud at the start of a meeting and (2) copied into the chat feature.
Here is a sample script for acquainting attendees with accessibility features in Zoom:
To turn on Live Transcription or Captions:
- On the Zoom Meeting Controls tool bar, click on the More or聽three dots.
- Click on Captions. * You can show or hide captions.
- You can click on 鈥榁iew Full Transcript.鈥欌�� It will appear in a side panel.
For standing meetings or multiple sessions of an online course, you may not have to read this script aloud at the beginning of each meeting, but it鈥檚 good practice to continue to add it to the chat prior to the meeting or class.
Understand the process for requesting ASL Interpreters or Live Captioning
Students or colleagues from the Deaf or Hard of Hearing community may depend on live captions or sign language interpreters to access the spoken content of an online meeting.
These services are coordinated through two offices at UW:
- (DRS) coordinates services on behalf of matriculated students who require accommodations
- (DS0) coordinates services on behalf of 天美影院employees or visitors to 天美影院functions.
Please contact either of these offices to learn how to request these services.
For additional information, see the following pages:
- Live captions
- (DSO)
Communicate about and share meeting resources in accessible formats
- Distribute accessible slides and all other materials to attendees in advance.
- Clearly state the meeting agenda up-front, including which features of the meeting tool will be used.
Practical strategies
Some of the most effective strategies for ensuring online meetings are accessible are not technical strategies. They involve simple, non-technical practices such as the following:
- Ask meeting participants to state their name each time they speak.
- Restate questions before answering them, so everyone can hear them or see them in the captions.
- Read aloud questions or comments in the chat, so everyone can hear them or see them in the captions.
- Narrate your actions if doing a live demonstration or other form of active teaching. Not everyone can see what you鈥檙e referring to. Follow an easy mantra: 鈥淚f you do it, say it.鈥�
- Create pauses during and between activities, so students who are taking notes, students with slow Internet bandwidth, or students using captions or sign language interpreters can catch up.
For additional tips, see the following resources:
- Virtual Meetings & Trainings on the Accessibility at the UW website.
- – Recording on YouTube of the March 2026 Accessibility Lunch & Learn