When setting up and running Microsoft Teams meetings and live events, it's crucial to ensure your content is accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing. Here are some best practices to follow:
Enable Live Captions
Microsoft Teams can detect what’s said in a meeting and offer real-time captions. Live captions make your meeting more inclusive for participants who are deaf or hard of hearing, people with different levels of language proficiency, and those in noisy environments. To enable live captions:
- In a Microsoft Teams meeting, go to your meeting controls and select More options > Turn on live captions (preview).
- In a live event, follow the instructions given in Organizers: set up live captions and subtitles.
Choose a Clear Background
If participants or presenters will be signing, ensure their backgrounds are clear to make gestures easy to see. Avoid blurring the background, as this can obscure body language and gestures. For more information on changing or blurring backgrounds, see Change your background for a Teams meeting.
Best Practices for Participants
When participating in a Teams meeting or live event with deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals, consider these tips:
- Turn on video when speaking to allow deaf participants to read lips. (Tip: To toggle video on or off, press Ctrl+Shift+O.)
- Mute your audio when not speaking to avoid unnecessary background noise. (Tip: To toggle mute on or off, press Ctrl+Shift+M.)
- Avoid multiple people speaking at once and signal speaker changes clearly.
- Identify yourself before commenting to make discussions easier to follow without sound cues.
- Speak slowly and clearly.
Record and Share Meetings
Recording a meeting and sharing the recording is essential so all participants can review the discussion and revisit specific segments they might have missed. Ensure that any recordings have accurate and time-synced closed captions. For more information on recording meetings and events, see Record a meeting in Teams and Manage a live event recording and reports in Teams.
By following these best practices, you can create a more inclusive and accessible environment for all participants in your Microsoft Teams meetings and live events.