How adding captions can make your events more accessible
Did you know that 80% of Gen Z prefer to watch videos with the subtitles on? Or that 9% of UK residents have English as their second language? Or that 1 in 3 Brits have some kind of hearing difficulty. My partner is deaf in one ear and my child is Gen Z so we always have subtitles on in our house.
But it was a hybrid event I organised a few years ago that really brought home the power of captions. I noticed that one of the PhD students (who wasn’t a native English speaker) was in the room, but was also logged into the Zoom meeting on a laptop, specifically so that she could have the captions on.
Last week I attended the Accessible Events Show in London and it was really fun to see some of the new tech that is coming through to help people participate fully in events or meetings, whatever their needs. But the talks and table discussions really brought home to me that while fancy tech can be an added bonus – there are a lot of really simple and low cost/free things any event organiser can do to make their gathering more accessible. Again it comes down to intentional event design.
Captions are the gift that keeps on giving
One of the easiest and most impactful things you can do is add captions.
Captions make your event more accessible for up to 80% of people – Captions don’t just help people with hearing loss. They are also appreciated by people who are neurodivergent or are listening in their second (or third) language. And well… everyone. For example I’ve used captions recently to double-check details like names or statistics when I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly.
Captions give you a record of your event – if you save the transcript of your meeting you can use it to create summaries, share with people who couldn’t attend, or enable people with disabilities to convert the text into the format that they prefer (whether that’s braille or a podcast). This makes your event both more accessible in the moment and afterwards.
You can easily add captions to both online and in-person events
I remember when adding captions, even to a Zoom meeting, meant employing a transcriber – a human-being who was a super speedy typist. You might still want to do that for high-stakes or jargon-heavy meetings. But auto-generated captions have improved dramatically in recent years and adding them to both online and in-person events is easy and free.
Adding captions to online gatherings
Usually this is a simple as ticking a box. If you are the event host make sure you have enabled captions. If you don’t see the option then you might have to change it in your global account settings or ask your IT department to make the change for you. Here are links to instructions for Zoom, Teams and Google Meet. I even have a Zoom plugin which lets delegates choose auto-translated captions in pretty much any language. What a world we live in!
Adding captions to in-person gatherings
Until recently this was a little trickier, but built-in accessibility tools are coming to the rescue. PowerPoint has recently added a feature which lets you add add real-time automatic subtitles. I’ve had a play around with it and wasn’t impressed.A better option is to use the built-in accessibility features in Windows or Apple. You need to be presenting via a screen which is essentially an additional monitor (you probably are, this is the standard workplace set-up). Then you can have real-time captions overlaid on whatever you are presenting. You can use this link to find written instructions and I’ve also made a short video to show you what it looks like and how well it works.
Of course these automated captions have their limitations. You need good quality audio to start with so I’d advice a separate mic rather than relying on the built-in equipment. The tech also struggles with strong accents or technical jargon. You can add in glossaries or custom dictionaries, but if you are often running into problems here you might need a paid service. But let’s start where we are and get better from there!
If you need advice or training on how to make your events more inclusive it’s one of my favourite topics. I can run a webinar or workshop for your team or help you to draft an inclusive events strategy. Just get in touch to chat about what might work for you.
Photo by Monica Flores on Unsplash
