ACCESS GUIDELINES FOR ZOOM PRESENTERS AND PARTICIPANTS FOR THE WOMEN’S AND GENDER STUDIES CONSORTIUM CONFERENCE 2022
“There is a good feeling after and while you are experiencing access intimacy. It is a freeing, light, loving feeling. It brings the people who are a part of it closer; it builds and deepens connection.” Mia Mingus, Access Intimacy: The Missing Link
The WGSC Conference is committed to ensuring digital accessibility for everyone interested in learning, presenting, and being in community with one another at our spring conference. We continue to make changes to improve the user experience for everyone and apply the relevant accessibility standards. Please read the following information carefully, as it will assist us in caring for one another during our time together in April.
All concurrent sessions will happen in Zoom Meeting and keynotes and plenaries will happen in Zoom Webinar. Below, and on Zoom Support, are the differences between the two.
- Meetings are designed to be a collaborative event with all participants being able to screen share, turn on their video and audio, and see who else is in attendance.
- Webinars are designed so that the host and any designated panelists can share their video, audio and screen. The host can also unmute attendees. Webinars allow view-only attendees, who have the ability to interact via Q&A, Chat, and answering polling questions. Webinar attendees can’t rename themselves.
If you have any questions, concerns, or technical issues, please contact: Stephanie Rytilahti, director of the WGSC and conference co-chair, srrytilahti@wisc.edu,
Link to Full Conference Schedule*
*All keynotes and plenaries include CART, and ASL upon request via the conference registration form; all general conference sessions include closed captioning via Zoom.
*Please use our registration form to request additional accommodations for these events or general conference sessions. All requests should be placed at least two weeks in advance of the event to ensure enough lead time to coordinate.
GENERAL GUIDELINES FOR ALL PRESENTERS
- Provide self-visual descriptions as part of your introduction (describe yourself and background). Here’s an example of Disability Pride Madison doing so from the 2021 WGSC Conference.
- When not speaking, mute online microphones to reduce background noise.
- When speaking, please minimize as much background noise as possible to ensure audio quality.
- Present at a comfortable pace that makes possible accurate closed captions transcription, CART, and ASL interpretation. Keep a check on the chat feature of zoom in case an attendee messages asking presenters to slow down or increase their volume.
- When asking questions during Q&A, speakers should always identify themselves so audience members know who is speaking.
- Only one person should speak at a time.
ADDITIONAL GUIDELINES FOR PRESENTERS
- Speakers and moderators should always verbally repeat questions or statements made by the audience (whether spoken or in the chat).
- Provide an access document via Google Docs, containing a script of your talk or a list of common nouns (proper nouns especially) that occur in it
- Ensure anyone can access the document by going to “Share” in Google Docs, clicking the “Get link” box, and setting restrictions to “Anyone with the link”
- Make sure any activities are accessible to all bodies. Please offer modifications if necessary.
If Incorporating Slides into your presentation:
- Provide audio description of visual images, slides, charts, and videos. See this webpage from the University of Colorado Boulder for guidance on these descriptions.
- Use a high-contrast color scheme (e.g. white background, black font, or the reverse).
- Use a templated slide format.
- Use a sans-serif font, such as Arial, and maintain a large font size. For a list of sans-serif fonts please see this page.
- Provide minimal text on each slide.
- Provide audio description of visual images, slides, charts, and videos.