Accessibility Barriers, Conflicts and Repairs: Understanding the Experience of Professionals with Disabilities in Hybrid Meetings

Title of the Paper

Accessibility Barriers, Conflicts, and Repairs: Understanding the Experience of Professionals with Disabilities in Hybrid Meetings

Paper Information

• Subject Area: Human-Computer Interaction and Accessibility Design
• Keywords: hybrid meetings, accessibility, disability, future of work, remote work, social practices, assistive technology, accessibility conflicts, inclusivity, collaborative design

Research Background and Problem Statement

• Background:
  • During the COVID-19 pandemic, workplaces worldwide shifted from fully in-person operations to remote work, sparking a new trend of hybrid meetings that combine in-person and remote participants.
  • While hybrid meetings offer flexibility, existing literature primarily focuses on general challenges such as voice delays, technical failures, and communication inequalities between remote and in-person participants, without addressing the specific experiences of people with disabilities.
  • Previous research has overlooked how these challenges impact accessibility for individuals with disabilities.
• Challenges and Issues:
  • People with disabilities may encounter a range of accessibility challenges in hybrid meetings, such as difficulties identifying speakers, poor audio quality leading to captioning errors, barriers to turn-taking, and the loss of personalized accessibility setups available in home environments.
  • Different disability groups may have conflicting accessibility needs, referred to as "accessibility conflicts" (i.e., one person's accessibility requirement creating barriers for another).
  • It remains unclear whether and how hybrid meetings can serve as a critical resource for improving workplace accessibility for people with disabilities.
• Research Motivation:
  • To thoroughly explore the experiences of professionals with disabilities in hybrid meeting environments, uncovering unique accessibility benefits and challenges.
  • To design more inclusive accessibility solutions for hybrid meetings that support diverse working styles.

Solutions

• Methodology:
  • Conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 professionals from various disability backgrounds to investigate accessibility challenges, opportunities, and strategies in hybrid meetings.
  • Focused on the technological and social impacts of hybrid meetings on different types of disabilities and analyzed the processes of accessibility repair.
• Core Innovations:
  • Explored the concept of "visibility" and "invisibility" of accessibility labor in hybrid meetings, highlighting how visibility can be both a resource and a source of pressure.
  • Identified new accessibility conflicts in hybrid meetings, such as those arising from the use of smart cameras and captions.
  • Provided practical recommendations and directions for designing accessible solutions for hybrid meetings.
• Key Implementation Steps:
  1. Recruited eligible participants through social media and mailing lists.
  2. Conducted remote, semi-structured interviews lasting 50 to 95 minutes each.
  3. Offered participants optional features (e.g., live captions, interview outlines) to accommodate their accessibility needs.
  4. Recorded and transcribed the interviews, using reflexive thematic analysis to iteratively analyze the data and generate themes.

Research Findings

• Specific Findings:
  • Accessibility barriers in hybrid meetings include difficulties identifying participants and speakers, poor audio quality causing captioning errors, challenges with turn-taking, and the loss of personalized accessibility tools available in remote settings.
  • Identified scenarios of accessibility conflicts, such as smart cameras aiding some individuals in interpreting social cues while creating barriers for others (e.g., those prone to motion-induced dizziness).
  • Described strategies used by people with disabilities to address accessibility issues, such as sharing accessibility responsibilities with colleagues and collaboratively creating accessible environments through social practices.
• Comparative Advantages over Existing Solutions:
  • Provided a more nuanced analytical perspective on the dynamic processes of accessibility labor in hybrid meetings and the influence of social power relations.
  • Offered clear and practical accessibility design guidelines covering pre-meeting, in-meeting, and post-meeting stages.
• Experimental and Evaluation Results:
  • Data revealed that hybrid meeting options themselves are an accessibility resource, with different participation modes (remote and in-person) meeting the needs of diverse disability groups.
  • Participants generally emphasized that hybrid formats are more inclusive than single-mode formats.
• Limitations and Future Directions:
  • The participant group was primarily based in the US and UK, excluding individuals from other cultural and workplace contexts.
  • Future research should delve into the niche needs of specific disability groups (e.g., Deafblind individuals, AAC users).
  • The dynamic nature of hybrid meeting technologies necessitates ongoing reassessment of related accessibility issues.

Social and Technical Design Recommendations

• Accessibility Practices:
  1. Conduct regular accessibility checks before, during, and after meetings, using universal language (e.g., "Is the audio clear?") to reduce stigma for people with disabilities.
  2. Familiarize meeting organizers with room technology to ensure proper use of microphones and cameras; remind speakers to address the microphone directly.
  3. Establish simple and actionable accessibility practices, such as announcing names before speaking and minimizing overlapping conversations.
• Design Directions:
  • Provide remote participants with more customizable viewing experiences, including static and dynamic video rendering options.
  • Collect and display accessibility needs and potential conflicts anonymously in meeting invitations to encourage collaborative accessibility efforts among colleagues.
  • Implement technical reminders (e.g., pop-up alerts prompting speakers to reduce overlapping dialogue) to reinforce accessibility practices.
• Ethical Considerations:
  • Emphasize protecting the privacy of individuals with disabilities, ensuring that obtaining accessibility accommodations does not lead to discrimination or privacy breaches.