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Zoom Accessibility best practices

Zoom Accessibility best practices

Owned by marisha.marks@umass.edu (Unlicensed)

Zoom Accessibility Best Practices



Become familiar with Universal Design for Learning 

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines provide faculty members with a structured approach to an accessible classroom, both in a physical and online environment.  

Describe what you are annotating if using the Whiteboard 

Similar to using a white board in the classroom, you should always describe what you are writing on the board for anyone with a disability or anyone that is using their phone due to internet connection issues in your virtual room.  

Record Your Zoom Session 

There are a few reasons to consider recording your zoom sessions locally to your computer for distribution after a meeting or class: 

Offer asynchronous classes, when possible 

By providing a pre-recorded class, broken up into manageable chunks, instead of a live class, students currently facing changing environments, whether unexpected bandwidth issues or sharing devices at home, can complete the class in a self-paced atmosphere. This asynchronous approach also provides Disability Services with time to provide equally effective accommodations for any students with disabilities.  

When facilitating a synchronous (live) class 

A Custom Personal Link provides a clean and consistent Zoom meeting URL for all your meetings and classes. For example, you can create a personal link that is your first initial and last name. This is great for both meeting hosts and professors as it’s easy for employees and students to remember.  

Turn off HD Video 

Turning off HD Video will improve the user experience for everyone attending, especially if they have bandwidth limitations, restricted data usage on mobile, or unreliable internet access. Some institutions may already have this feature disabled for all licenses depending on how your institution’s Zoom global settings are configured.  

From within the Zoom Client: 

  1. Select the "Home" tab.
  2. Select the Settings “Gear” icon. 
  3. A settings pop-up window will open. 
  4. If you are using a Windows computer, select the “View Advanced Features” link under General settings.
  5. If you are using a Mac computer, select the “View More Settings” link under General settings. 
  6. The Zoom website will open. Login if you are prompted with the login screen. The Meeting Settings page will open.
  7. Navigate to the In Meeting (Advanced) section of the Meeting Settings page.
  8. Disable the Group HD video setting.  

Note: If the Group HD video setting is “locked by admin,” contact your Help Desk to have the feature unlocked.  

Enable the Closed Captions Feature  

Enable the Closed Captions feature on your account for any meetings or classes that will require closed captions. Closed captioning services will be identified based on accommodation requests. In addition, please be familiar with how to assign a participant to type closed captions should a request arise.  

Note that Zoom can experience intermittent delays in live captioning of events. It’s best to work with your Disability Services to provide an alternate method to access live captions should delays occur. Many CART providers can provide a link to the live captions streaming in a separate browser window. 

Limit active videos to no more than 4 videos when using a sign language interpreter  

Per the Deaf/Hard of Hearing Technology Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center’s Zoom research, they found that any meeting with more than 8 participants can cause cognitive overload when sharing more than 4 videos at one time. Their recommendation is as follows: 

The default policy is to have video off. Every participant should take care to turn on video after given the floor and turn off video when the interaction has been completed. The Zoom host can unilaterally turn off video of participants and request that a participant turn on video (which results in the participant getting  pop-up notice with a button to turn on video). 

Only three parties should have video on at all times: 

  • The chair 
  • The person managing turn-taking and monitoring the chat box (more on that below) 
  • The sign language interpreters (if applicable) 

Following this rule means that a very manageable maximum of four videos will be on screen at all times. 

Note: Faculty may want to consider this “4 videos active” rule for all classes, especially if students are supposed to be focusing on the instructor and resource materials as having non-active speaker videos enabled could generally cause distraction.  

Encourage participants to enable “Always Show Meeting Controls Toolbar” 

Share instructions with your participants on how to always show meeting controls. By selecting the “Always Show Meeting Controls Toolbar” checkbox, the controls at the bottom of the zoom screen will remain up. This improves the user experience for many participants as they don’t have to worry about the bar appearing and disappearing upon hover (especially if they are new to Zoom and don’t know how to make the bar at the bottom show up after it’s disappeared). 

From within the Zoom Client: 

  1. Select the "Home" tab.
  2. Select the Settings “Gear” icon. A settings pop-up window will open. 
  3. Select the “View Advanced Features” (Windows) or “View More Settings” link (Mac) under General settings. The Zoom website will open. Login if you are prompted with the login screen. The Meeting Settings page will open.
  4. Navigate to the In Meeting (Basics) section of the Meeting Settings page.
  5. Enable the “Always show meeting control toolbar” setting.  

Enable the “Mute Participants Upon Entry” Feature 

In your meeting settings, select the “Mute participants upon entry” checkbox (located under Meeting Options when schedulinga session). Participants will have to unmute their mics to participate. This feature will ensure less disruptions at the start of a meeting or class. 

Communicate Keyboard Shortcuts 

Send out the Zoom Keyboard Shortcuts ahead of time. These instructions are valuable for anyone using keyboard only navigation or assistive technology. In addition, it could be helpful to anyone who may have had their mouse stop working unexpectedly. 

Remember to describe images and other visual content that’s displayed 

Describing visual content that is displayed will help anyone with a vision or cognitive disability, as well as someone that may have needed to call in due to a local internet outage. 

Provide instructions on how participants can ask questions  

There are a couple ways people can ask questions. First, participants can use non-verbal feedback, such as raising their hand and unmuting when called upon. In addition, they can post a question in the chat feature. The recommendation is to use both features, but to always repeat questions that are provided through chat. By repeating the questions, you will help anyone that can’t access the chat during the session (people using assistive technology will have too much screen reader interference if they enable chat) and you will improve the captioning quality of any recorded sessions.  

Communicate resource links you post in Chat  

It’s okay to use the Chat feature. However, keep in mind that anyone using assistive technology may not be able to copy or activate the links. In addition, people who join the meeting late or lose their connection and need to reconnect will not be able to access chat content that occurred during the time they weren’t on the zoom session. It’s recommended that you send any resource links you’ll be sharing either prior to or after the session. You can also speak out the URL when posting it in Chat. If your resource link is long, consider using a URL shortener, such as bit.ly or tiny URL, to help with communicating the link verbally and so that the link is cleaner for anyone copying it from the chat box.  

Confirm the best polling technology in advance 

Please reach out to your IT office to identify which polling product is the most accessible to all your participants. Currently, the Zoom polling tool has significant barriers for both presenters and participants with disabilities. 

For more, see Accessibility Features on Zoom .