Zoom Conducting Accessible Meetings

Introduction
Task: Access the “Zoom” Client Accessibility Settings
Task: Access in-meeting Options for Transcription
Suggested Resources
Bibliography

Introduction

“Zoom has a variety of options for creating virtual closed captioning in your Zoom meetings and webinars that provide subtitles for video conferencing. These options can be enabled and used by participants to easily follow the conversations or to meet accessibility requirements.

In a meeting, the host or another participant assigned by the host can provide manual captioning, an integrated third-party closed captioning service can provide the captioning, or Zoom’s automated captions (also known as live transcription) feature can provide automatic captioning. (Zoom, Inc., 2022)”.

Task: Access the “Zoom” Client Accessibility Settings

Review accessibility options available in the “Zoom” client by opening the “Settings” menu (Figure 1):

Screenshot of the Zoom desktop application on macOS showing the Home tab, with a red box and arrow highlighting the Settings (gear) icon in the upper right corner. The main area shows buttons for New Meeting and Join, along with a clock displaying 1:09 PM on Wednesday, December 21, 2022.

Figure 1: Accessing “settings” options for the Zoom desktop client.

“Accessibility” settings that you can adjust include (Figure 2):

Change the font size for closed captioning.
Change the font size for “Chat”.
Automatically dim the screen when screen sharing if certain visual patterns are detected that might negatively affect students negatively.
Enable screen reader alerts for various events.

Screenshot of the Zoom Settings dialog on macOS with the Accessibility section selected and highlighted in the left navigation panel. Four red numbered callouts highlight key accessibility settings on the right: (1) Closed Captioning font size slider, (2) Chat Display Size dropdown set to 100%, (3) Dim Screen Share Video option to automatically dim video when flashing images or visual patterns are detected, and (4) Screen Reader Alerts section listing toggles for various meeting event notifications.

Figure 2: Accessibility settings for the “Zoom” desktop client.

Task: Access in-meeting Options for Transcription

By default, all Zoom meeting recordings will have automatically-generated captions associated with it (Figure 3).

Screenshot of a Zoom recording playback interface showing a shared screen with speaker view by "La Tanya C." A red box and arrow highlight closed captions displayed at the bottom of the video reading "James Behnke: Yes, excellent. Okay." A second red box highlights the Audio Transcript panel on the right side, which shows a searchable transcript of the recording with timestamped entries from the speaker James.

Figure 3: Click the “CC” tool from a shared Zoom recording to turn on closed captions.

These captions will be available shortly after the recording can be accessed in the Zoom portal site.

To view options available for creating captions in “real-time” during a live “Zoom” meeting, open the “Live Transcript” menu in the Zoom meeting client (Figure 4).

Figure 4: The “Live Transcript” tools menu accessed from an active “Zoom” meeting.

By default, participants can request that you enable “Live Transcription”. These are automatically-generated captions that will appear in real-time as the meeting progresses. Captions created via “Live Transcription” will not be 100% accurate.

If real-time transcription is required for an accommodation per the Office of Disability Services, you have the option of assigning “live” captioning to a meeting participant or integrating a 3^rd-party captioning service.

For more information on options available for “live” captioning during “Zoom” meetings and providing accommodations for people with disabilities, contact the FDU Office of Disability Services.

For some general tips on how to conduct more accessible meetings in “Zoom”, read: