Transcript Accessible Telecollaboration and Web Conferencing in the

Accessible Telecollaboration
and Web Conferencing
in the Workplace
Christian Vogler, Paula Tucker,
Norman Williams, Judith Harkins
Technology Access Program
Gallaudet University
TDI 19th Biennial International Conference
Austin, TX
June 3, 2011
Overview
 We present ongoing work by the Rehabilitation
Engineering Research Center on Telecommunications
Access (RERC-TA):
1. Introduction: What and Why?
2. Gathering information on and solving accessibility
problems
1. Focus Groups
2. Online accessibility forum
3. R&D on prototype solutions
3. Summary
Introduction: What is
telecollaboration?
 Using telecommunication and Internet technologies
 To interact in real time with others who are not in the
same physical location,
 and working to produce or create something together.
[show demo video]
Telecollaboration is not VRS
 We don’t just have a chat together, like in a conference call.
 Rather, we collaborate through multiple channels of
information, such as:
 Video
 Text
 Presentations
 Movies
 Documents
 However: Some systems allow calling into a phone number
to talk to other participants via audio/video.
How widely used?
 $83.3 million industry in 2007
 projected $3.2 billion industry by 2014
Where Used?
 Used in business for meetings, seminars, training
 Used in education for on-line courses, distance
learning, collaboration with colleagues
 Becoming more popular as it becomes more
expensive and cumbersome to travel.
Telecollaboration Accessibility
 As always with new communication technologies:
 There are new opportunities for people with disabilities.
 And new barriers.
 Accessibility cannot be an afterthought –
telecollaboration systems need to be designed from the
ground up with it in mind.
Gathering Information on
Accessibility
 First we have to know what the accessibility barriers are,
before we can fix them.
 Our research comprises three stages of gathering
information and involving the community:
1. Focus groups – tell us what kinds of things to pay attention to
2. Web conferencing accessibility forum: Exchanges between
consumers and industry online – lets us investigate issues in
more depth, and work with industry on solutions
3. R&D and testing accessible technology prototypes – test what
concrete solutions work, and make it easy for industry to adopt
them
1. Focus Groups
What is a Focus Group?
A focus group is:
 an opportunity to gather and document the experiences and
relevant issues of a small group of people with a common
interest.
 an opportunity to ask questions in an interactive setting
where participants are encouraged to comment on what
other participants have said.
A focus group is not:
 a generalization of the experiences of everyone within a
particular group.
Requirements for
Participation
 Participated in at least 2 teleconferences and/or
webinars in the past year.
 Age 18 or older.
 Have access to a telephone line/videophone to call in
to the focus group conference call.
 Have a computer and broadband connection active
during the call.
 Be available for 2 hours of discussion.
Who Participated?
 Blind: Users who access their computers via screen
readers or Braille.
 Low Vision: Users who access their computers via
screen readers or magnified/enlarged text.
 Deaf: Users who participate in teleconferences via ASL
(using VRS or on-site interpreters)
 Hard of hearing: Users who participate in
teleconferences using speech and text (e.g., CART,
CapTel, etc.)
Set-Up
 For each focus group, participants were given
 A toll-free call-in number
 A link to access either WebEx or Accessible Event to see
focus group PowerPoint with questions
 A link to see live captions
 WebEx: Software that allows collaboration for online
meetings, including sharing documents, PowerPoints,
etc.
 Accessible Event: Same idea as WebEx, but designed
for blind and low vision users.
Preliminary Results: Benefits of
Telecollaboration (a few)
 Common to all:
 Comfort of participating from home or office with no need
to worry about difficulty or expense of travel.
 Ability to review printed material using computer and
software that you are comfortable using.
 Blind/low vision
 Levels the playing field on an audio only call – they can’t
see participants’ body language and facial expressions,
but neither can anyone else.
Common Barriers:
Getting the Floor
 Deaf and hard of hearing users
 Always slightly behind because of translation delay and/or
captioning delay
 By the time they get the floor, topic may have changed and
don’t want to feel embarrassed by being off-topic
 Blind and low vision users
 May not be able to access software tools like “hand raising”
so don’t know when to jump in
Barriers: Speaker
Identification
Common problem for all groups as participants often fail
to identify themselves before speaking, even when
reminded.
Deaf and hard of hearing: Interpreter/captioner is
unfamiliar with participants and can’t identify who is
speaking.
Blind/low vision: In a video conference, they can’t see
who is speaking. May become confused when a deaf
person changes voice interpreters, especially when it is
a new interpreter of a different gender!
Barriers: Not accommodating
user needs
 Deaf/hard of hearing
 Unwillingness of organizer to provide interpreters and/or
CART.
 Blind/low vision
 Not providing printed materials in advance
 Choosing color schemes that do not provide enough
contrast
 Selecting web conferencing software that can’t be used
with screen reader/magnification software.
Barriers: Technical Issues
 Common: Too many “bells and whistles” make system too complex to
use easily.
 Deaf and hard of hearing
 Many software programs do not include captioning support.
 Video quality is fine for a talking head, but not good enough for sign
language.
 Blind/low vision
 Software not compatible with user’s screen reader/Braille/magnification
software.
 Unable to read inaccessible PowerPoints, pdfs, diagrams, graphs, etc.
 Unable to change features such as color contrast to meet their individual
needs.
 Impossible to use programs that require a mouse for maneuvering through
the program.
Barriers: Being
misunderstood/misinterpreted
 Deaf/hard of hearing
 Problems pop up when the interpreter is not familiar with
the subject matter, especially if it is something technical.
 When relying on VRS, a change of interpreters means a
new interpreter jumping in mid-discussion and not
knowing the topic, speakers, vocabulary that had been
introduced already, etc.
 Errors in captioning lead to inappropriate responses to
questions
Result of barriers?
 All participants said they sometimes try to avoid web
conferences where the access issues are too difficult to
overcome.
 Some give up part-way through because they can’t
follow what’s going on. They hope they’ll be able to
review the materials later, and a colleague will catch
them up.
 Losing participants because of access issues means a
loss to the group of their knowledge and their
experience.
2. Webconferencing
Accessibility Forum
What is this Forum?
 We are launching a new web site open to anyone:
 WebConfAccess is a place to find, review, and discuss
web conferencing tools and accessibility issues for
people with disabilities
 https://webconfaccess.gallaudet.edu/
WebConfAccess Goals
 Recall: Focus groups tell us what some of the issues are,
but we cannot generalize them to all people
 The WebConfAccess forum lets us start with the focus group
results as a basis, and solicit more input from a wider
community
 It provides a mechanism for community and industry to learn
about accessibility issues, and to engage with each other
 It also serves as a database for concrete information on
accessibility features of specific products
Goals (continued)
 The overarching goal:
 Get detailed information on specific barriers and guide
R&D on what can be done to resolve them
WebConfAccess features
 Content is generated collaboratively by the community
 Submit experience reports by telecollaboration product,
disability, feature, and role
 Respond to and comment on other reports
 Review and develop guidelines and best practices
 Search for specific features and products
 [Show hands-on demo]
3. R&D and prototype
accessibility solutions
Development of prototypes
 Some prototypes will arise out of the results of the
focus groups and the online forum.
 Others are being developed and tested concurrently,
such as the following examples.
R&D – Captioning
Deaf/hard of hearing
 CART integrated into conferencing system
 Ability to control position of captions
 Ability to change size and color of captions
Crowdsourced CART error
correction
Ability of group participants to correct errors (technical
terms, names, etc.) of CART text
Deaf group participants – didn’t like the idea. Thought
participants should be involved in the conference, not
busy correcting errors.
Hard of hearing participants – Thought it was an
interesting idea, but didn’t see how it could really be
implemented.
R&D – Automatic
speaker identification
Everyone wanted this!
 Deaf/hard of hearing
 Highlight speaker’s name on captions
 Colored or flashing box around video box of speaker
 Blind/low vision
 Announce name of person when selected by moderator
R&D – Preference profile
Ability to customize interface of the system
 Deaf/hard of hearing
 Add box for remote interpreter
 Ability to integrate captions
 Blind/low vision
 Ability to change screen color/contrast/font type and size
Summary
 Telecollaboration is growing rapidly; e.g. many
workplaces and universities are implementing such
systems; online webinars and conferences are widely
offered
 We need to identify accessibility problems and pursue
solutions now, before it is too late; the work by RERCTA focuses on this.
Summary: Wish List
 Involve users with access issues in software
development and design. Much harder to solve
accessibility issues later.
 TEST TEST TEST with users to identify problems and
then fix them!
Acknowledgments
 The contents of this presentation were developed with
funding from the National Institute on Disability and
Rehabilitation Research, U.S. Department of
Education, grant number H133E090001 (RERC on
Telecommunications Access). However, those contents
do not necessarily represent the policy of the
Department of Education, and you should not assume
endorsement by the Federal Government.
Questions?
 Contact:
[email protected]
(202) 250-2795
http://tap.gallaudet.edu/
Web conferencing and telecollaboration accessibility site:
http://webconfaccess.gallaudet.edu/