Welcome to the twenty-eighth episode of Access On, the National Federation of the Blind's Technology podcast.
Episode
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Timestamps
The show is segmented by chapter, making it easy to move between segments of the podcast if you have an app or player that supports chapters. Below is what's on the show this week, and when you can hear it.
- Introduction 0:00
- Our WWDC keynote special 0:47
- Join us for our four-hour seminar on podcasting as a blind person, June 11 4:13
- Sean Seward from the NFB's Independence Market discusses shopping the catalog online 6:32
- A look at the Zoom online meeting platform 31:52
- Closing and contact info 1:04:05
Transcript
AUDIO: Live the life you want.
Jonathan Mosen: Welcome to Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. This week, Sean Seward from the NFB's Independence Market discusses our new e-commerce platform and more. And we conclude our look at online meeting platforms with hosting and attending Zoom meetings.
It's Jonathan Mosen, back with you at the Jernigan Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. Really appreciate you checking out episode 28 of the podcast, plenty to tell you about as you hear there from the introduction. But I also have some things to tell you about in terms of what's coming up. We're going to be publishing on a different schedule next week because Apple will be holding its Worldwide Developers Conference beginning on June the 9th, and as is their tradition, they will start with their keynote, which reveals the next versions of their operating systems.
We are hearing strong rumors that they're going to a year based model for the version numbers this year. So until recently we were expecting incremental version changes. So the current version of iOS is iOS 18. We were expecting to hear about iOS 19. Now there are strong, credible sources suggesting that Apple is going to go to year numbers similar to the way JAWS does its versions.
So the next version of iOS would actually be iOS 26 because iOS 26 would come out in September and be the version for the majority of 2026. So we'll just see whether the tech press has it right and Apple is making that radical change.
Apparently there are going to be some significant aesthetic changes as well to the way that the operating systems look and function and at the National Federation of the Blind, we have an interest in this. We want to make sure that Apple is taking accessibility into account, that the community has the opportunity to do sufficient testing and that Apple is taking feedback from that testing into account.
We also know that Apple is going to be introducing a new Braille access mode, which is positioning iDevices to be, I guess a replacement for Braille note takers. That's what they seem to be hoping. The devices will read BRF and there'll be a bunch of new Braille features. So we want to kick the tires on that.
But first we want to make sure that you are aware of all of the things that are being talked about in this WWDC keynote. For many years, many years. If you've been listening to podcasts that I have hosted, you will know that we have always covered WWDC as quickly as possible after the keynote and we are going to keep up that tradition.
So on the Monday after the WWDC keynote, I'm going to be recording with a panel of experts, which will include Judy Dixon, who was a prolific author of iOS related books. She just published another one actually with National Braille Press about AI and your iPhone, which you might like to check out if you're interested in that.
Michael Feir is also an author. He has just published his latest version of iOS Personal Power, which is a huge book covering all aspects of using iOS from a blindness perspective, and he makes that book available free. He donates it to the blind community and he always has some good perspectives to offer.
And one of the things that people do appreciate a lot is that in the past we have had Heidi Taylor from New Zealand, who is also my daughter, and she's one of those people who can think like a blind person thinks. These days, Heidi is also an access technology consultant and that's very nice.
One of the things that she does during the WWDC keynotes is that she captures pictures of things that aren't being audio described at the keynote or that the presenters on the stage aren't talking about because there's so much action and there's so much written on screen and she's able to go through that material. So we get insights thanks to her presence that we may otherwise have missed.
So right after the keynote, we're going to record a wrap on the WWDC keynote event. We'll get that published late on Monday and we hope that you'll find that interesting. That's all happening on June the 9th, and we look forward to doing that for you.
And what a busy week it's going to be because just a reminder that on June the 11th, I'll be anchoring a four-hour seminar on how to do podcasting as a blind person. They used to say there's a book in all of us, and I think these days people say, well, there's a podcast in all of us pretty much. But sometimes the technical aspects of this can be daunting. How do you get started? What equipment do you need? How do you publish your podcast when you've put it together and it's at a level that you're happy other people hearing? We're going to be covering all of that.
I'll be anchoring this as somebody who's been podcasting for over 20 years now, while you've suffered a lot, right? 20 years of me podcasting, it's actually going to be 21 in October. I was very fortunate to get on board right at the beginning of the whole podcasting thing, and I can tell you it was a lot more difficult then to podcast than it is now. There's lots of accessible equipment out there, plenty of tools that are accessible as well. So we'll talk to you about those.
We'll talk about interview techniques, we'll talk about marketing, pretty much every aspect of podcasting as much as we can fit in over four hours. And we will have some guests as well, including Melissa Riccobono, who you will have heard, if you listen to our wonderful Nation's Blind podcast. Melissa's doing all sorts of things with audio and I'm delighted that she's going to be talking to us about her journey and how she got into this, how she fulfilled a childhood dream of working with audio.
There'll be plenty of room for Q&A of course, if you want to come along with plenty of questions, but to do that, you need to register and to register, you can go to nfb.org/cena, that's nfb.org/cena and you'll find an events and training link on that CENA page. If you choose that, you will be able to register for our podcasting seminar, which is taking place on June the 11th.
I'm very much looking forward to bringing that to you. I know there's a lot of interest in how the sausage is made, as it were. How do you do a podcast like this one? And we'll be happy to share some tips and tricks and secrets of the trade, as it were, with you over that four-hour webinar, which we will get around to serializing here on Access On. But there's nothing quite like attending it in person, participating in the Q&A and just being a part of that live online event. So nfb.org/cena if you'd like to register for that.
You may have heard of the NFB's Independence Market. It's been a fixture that's been around for some time. It is much loved and respected because you know that you can find a range of products that can help you to live the life you want. Well, we have a pretty significant development to talk about today and that is that the Independence Market is going online. So I've invited Sean Seward to come along and talk with me here at the IBTC conference room. Sean, it's great to have you on the podcast. Welcome.
Sean Seward: Thank you Jonathan for having me. Exciting moment to be here and excited to have a conversation with you.
Jonathan Mosen: How'd you come to the NFB? What's your background?
Sean Seward: So I did eight years in the Maryland Business Enterprise Program or the Randolph-Sheppard program, as most states call it, ran its business successfully there and COVID caused my business to close down and therefore I was out of opportunity and looking for work, and my boss, John Paré, was doing a presentation, advertising this position as the Independence Market manager.
I thought it would be a great fit. It was very close to what I was already doing as a business owner and came here. I've learned a lot, loved the challenge of being the market manager and taking it to different heights.
Jonathan Mosen: Tell me about the Independence Market then for those who aren't familiar with it, because there'll be people who are listening who are not NFB members, maybe they're listening from the other side of the world. What does the Independence Market do and what's its aiming to achieve?
Sean Seward: Of course, we want you to be able to live the life that you want to live, and so in order for you as a blind or low vision person that is shopping, you need products, you need things that make your life a lot easier.
So if you want to cook, you may need some large print, or Braille measuring spoons or cups. You want to travel independently, you need a cane, a specific type of cane, a light cane that is easy for you to navigate throughout your travels. If you want to watch your weight or if you have a weight goal, you need a talking scale. All of these are things that are available to you in our Independence Market.
I like to try to think about things in a way, how did I grow up? Things that I wish that I had available to me. Coupling that with the growing technology wave today, it's hard trying to balance it all because a lot of our members are older and so they don't want to adhere to some of the newer technology. The AI and cellular devices is one thing that comes to mind.
They really want to stick with what we grew up with. So talking watches, talking clocks, those are things that are available to a member or a person who shops in the Independence Market. It's just kind of hard balancing it because you want to bring in new items that offer maybe Alexa capability or compatibility or Google...
Jonathan Mosen: A Google Home, for example.
Sean Seward: Yes, Google Home or things like that, but some of our members, they don't even use internet, and so how do you create that balance where, okay, I'm able to make this side happy, but I'm also able to make that side happy. Price point. All of the things that you have to take into consideration while being successful in the role. It is definitely a lot to juggle.
Jonathan Mosen: And there are potentially an enormous number of products that could go into the Independence Market, and I take it that there is some sort of process that you go through that determines is this of sufficient quality, is it reliable enough to make it to the independence market?
Sean Seward: Yeah, the first thing that I think about is accessibility. What makes it accessible? I will not introduce or even consider an item if it is not accessible, if it's not going to make our day-to-day lives easy. I'm a totally blind person, so the importance of having Braille or talking products to me specifically is very important. Then I go to, okay, well, how often are we going to use it? Is this something that 10% people would use or is this something that 75% of people will use?
How successful will the item be, I guess is what I'm trying to say, because that's important too. We don't want to introduce things to the market just for the sake of saying that we have it in the market. We want to introduce to the market things that are going to be successful, things that are really going to make a difference in people's lives and things that people want.
A lot of times I hear members ask for certain things and I may check it out and I may say, okay, it is worth having a conversation about, but there's been a whole lot of items like you mentioned, that's been brought to my attention and I can't justify why it's accessible, or I can't justify, maybe one or two people may buy it, but is it really going to... And I don't want it to fly off the shelves. I mean, well, I want it to fly off the shelves, but I want it to be meaningful. I want it to make a difference in the day-to-day lives.
So it starts with accessibility. What is the demand going to be for it, and then it starts how we use it on a day-to-day basis.
Jonathan Mosen: Not all of the products in the Independence Market would require a user guide or documentation, but some will. What's the process in terms of making that documentation accessible?
Sean Seward: So we do have, and I've been working on trying to get more of them, we have a good bit of our items that come with Braille instructions. Some of them you can order by request, so you would give us a call in the Independence Market and say, "Hey, I just purchased this new watch and I need some help setting it.
Can you send me some Braille instructions?" Those instructions are also available online via some of the vendors that we order from. So we're able to obtain the link to those items and so that way we can email that to that customer so that they're able to access that information and be able to use that product successfully.
And I just want to make sure that I specify we're not a technical support center, but if I have time, sometimes I will sit with a customer and help them set that watch. It doesn't usually take me long because I usually try to figure out the watches so that I can answer those questions in a quick manner, but usually just a courtesy that I offer, time-dependent.
Jonathan Mosen: It's always a dilemma, isn't it when you're in this market that there is some expectation sometimes about tech support and it's very difficult to provide it for every product.
Sean Seward: Yes. Yes.
Jonathan Mosen: It's just a real challenge. So the Independence Market predominantly people have been engaging with that. I mean, people visit us for all sorts of conferences and other things. We get a lot of blind people coming through the building, but predominantly it's been a telephone-based experience, right?
Sean Seward: Yes. Telephone and email. Yes, sir.
Jonathan Mosen: And now we've got this e-commerce platform. That's an achievement, isn't it? It's taken some time to build that and to make sure that it's up to our standards.
Sean Seward: To our listeners, I am smiling from ear to ear. When I first started in the market, I wanted to make sure that I made an impression on our members and I wanted to make sure that it was a place that was enjoyable, and one of the things that was discussed when I first came on is we want to get online shopping back.
And that was exciting to me and also mind-blowing because it was like, wait, we don't have online access? One of the things that I learned that it is a process. And it is a process because we want to make sure that we put the absolute best product out available to our members.
We want to make sure again, that it is accessible, that it is easy to use, that it's understandable, and so the e-commerce site launched live on the 15th, Global Accessibility Day. That was very exciting. I love this story just because I made a joke on the presidential release about when you wake up 2:00 in the morning and you want a place the order, and literally I came in the next morning and someone had ordered at 2:00 in the morning.
The overwhelming feedback from the members, the excitement, it's been great and I'm happy that we were able to get that done for our members to be able to have that access. And we want to continue to grow it from even where it is now.
Jonathan Mosen: And the URL is catalog.nfb.org and that will take them to the e-commerce platform. You can browse the catalog, you can place orders. Are there any features of the e-commerce platform you wanted to highlight in particular? Also, are there things that you should still phone for?
Sean Seward: Absolutely. So right now you can order just about everything that is able to be delivered, free matter. The only free matter items that you cannot order through e-commerce are our free literature. So for free literature, you'll still have to call us.
Also, you'll still have to call us for expedited shipping. So if you need a cane because your cane broke and you need it by Monday or Tuesday, you still have to call us to get that expedited shipping. And as I mentioned, we're still growing the site, we're still working on the platform. We hope that pretty soon we'll be able to do purchase orders on the e-commerce platform. So we are still working behind the scenes to improve the site to make it more accessible.
But I guess one of the highlights, the ability to have pictures on the platform, that was one of the things that a lot of people would call that were helping our members shop, "I don't have any pictures to look at. I have your catalog, but I don't have any pictures to be able to describe it to my loved one."
Now we have the ability to upload pictures to the site, and so when we have someone and they'll have descriptions with them, audio description, so as a blind person, you'll be able to listen to that description and determine if this is the right watch for you or the right cane for you. And if you have a loved one who is searching with you, they can also describe it to you visually as well.
Jonathan Mosen: Yeah, the cane is one of the most essential pieces of technology that we have. I mean, it is very basic technology, but it helps us live the life we want. And the canes that the Independence Market sell, there's been a lot of thought and experience of blind people that have gone into the way that those canes work, right?
Sean Seward: Yes.
Jonathan Mosen: The lightness, the issues around height, all sorts of things like that.
Sean Seward: Yes. Yes. Absolutely, yes. So when I'm talking to a customer and I am talking about canes, I often get, "Well, what's the difference between a straight cane and a folding cane. And well, why is this cane so long? My cane is heavier than this. Why do you use this light flimsy cane?" It wasn't until I started at the NFB over three years ago now.
When I first started, I used a heavier cane and I was just having a discussion with a friend the other day because he used the same kind of cane that I used before I started, and I was explaining to him how when you're walking for a long enough period of time and you're using a heavier cane, it puts a lot of stress on your wrist, a whole lot of stress on your wrist, in your mind, or at least in my mind, I'm wondering why is my wrist hurting?
When I started using an NFB cane, I never had that issue. I travel a lot, I walk a lot. I'm always using my cane. With the NFB cane, it is very light. We recommend using a longer cane between the chin and the nose to cover more ground as you're traveling. So these are the kinds of things that I'm explaining to customers.
Whether you use a folding cane or a straight cane, some people use a telescoping cane, which is not meant for everyday use, but there are people who do use a telescoping cane regularly, but the one thing that you're going to notice automatically is how light it is and how much less stress is placed on your wrist and your arms as you're trying to use the NFB cane.
Jonathan Mosen: And you get spoiled. I mean, I'm using an NFB cane and I do have what I would call legacy canes as well. It's always good to have a spare cane of some kind in case something happens, especially if you're going to something like conventions.
Sean Seward: Yes.
Jonathan Mosen: You want to carry something in your backpack, just although I suppose there are places when the exhibit hall's open where you can buy a cane there, but you don't want to risk that. But when I do switch to another cane, I really notice it now just how much heavier they are.
Sean Seward: Yes, it's a huge difference. To be honest with you, I was using the cane that I had from high school, which was way shorter than it should have been, and then I had ordered another cane off of Amazon as a backup, way shorter than it should have been because I just didn't know any better.
Then I think the rules were very different probably 20, 30 years ago when I was in grade school versus what they are now. Life has evolved. O&M techniques have evolved, and so there's more information out there for us to be able to absorb. That is one of the things that I learned when I came here as well. Just the different techniques of using a cane and then the lightness of the NFB cane.
Jonathan Mosen: Now at the Presidential Release live and elsewhere as well. There's been a lot of discussion about the Rubik's Cube.
Sean Seward: Yes, sir.
Jonathan Mosen: And I'm interested in this because I can remember 40 years ago when the Rubik's Cube, or even longer than 40 years ago when the Rubik's Cube was a big thing, and I did have an accessible one, but I don't remember where that came from. I think it may have came from the RNIB or something in the UK. Tell me about this and why people are so excited about the accessible Rubik's Cube.
Sean Seward: A lot of times when we purchase Rubik's Cubes that are, quote, unquote, meant for blind or low vision people, they use stickers to enhance or raise the markings on the Rubik's Cube. And so after you have them for a long enough period of time, those stickers tend to fall off. So now where's that triangle? Where's that square so that I can solve this Rubik's Cube, and you don't know where it is. Now if you play with it long enough, you can probably figure it out if you match up everything else. And then, oh, this missing space, that's where the square is.
The biggest difference with this one is the markings are not stickers, so it's not going to wear out on you. It's not going to fade away, at least not just come completely off like a stick of wood. This one is more permanent, I would say. It gives you... There's different textures, not just shapes, which is nice.
And people were really excited about this Rubik's Cube for a long time and we wanted to make sure that we put it out in a time where it would be most meaningful for members. So now it is available on our e-commerce site, and that site you can go visit is catalog.nfb.org and you can order that Rubik's Cube or give us a call at the market as well.
And then also it'll be, I want to make sure that I mention it, it'll be available at our national convention in New Orleans as well.
Jonathan Mosen: How quickly can you do one, Sean? The cube?
Sean Seward: I have still not figured it out and I want to. I'm a fidgeter, so I'm always kind of playing, so I'm still trying to figure out in my mind how in the world people figure these things out. I know that they have apps now, and I'm pretty sure I could probably ask ChatGPT how to do it, but I'm stubborn enough to kind of try to figure it out on my own.
Jonathan Mosen: Good on you. And there were all sorts of form factors for those Rubik's things back in the day. They had a snake and his sphere and all sorts of different things. Amazing, amazing time.
So you mentioned national convention. Obviously we're all getting excited about packing up and heading to New Orleans and all the fellowship and the decisions that will be made and the information imparted. What does it look like for the Independence Market at convention? What can people expect?
Sean Seward: Super busy. We are busy in the market from the time we touch down in New Orleans until the last day that the exhibit hall closes. From unpacking, to setting up the market, to serving members, to fulfilling orders, to packing up the market. We bring a large majority of the market with us. It's the one time of the year where people know they can come get those cane tips, those canes, those cards.
It's a big time for games because you have so many people together who they want to play Uno together, they want to play Connect Four. They just want to enjoy each other's company while they're in said location. This year we're in New Orleans.
But it's fun. I know again, one of the things that I'm excited about is when we first came our first year, we were doing a lot of things with paper, writing out receipts, writing out orders, and now we've grown the market to a point now where we're using a Square system and we're not having to do nearly as much writing.
So I know our volunteers, who we absolutely appreciate, each and every one of you that shows up for us every year at the market and volunteers with us, but it is a time saver. We have been able to cut down the time that people are waiting in line because we've introduced this new POS system, the Square POS system. So although it's busy, it is fun and the time kind of flies because there's always something to do. But I also think that we've made our members' experience a lot better from years prior.
Jonathan Mosen: So that's an important distinction because sometimes when you go to the exhibit hall and you find a vendor there, they are taking orders and they have demo product, but often they will ship the order after the convention and you can't have that thing that you wanted right away, which is kind of disappointing. But it sounds like with the Independence Market, you can go there, you can look for things and you can walk away with what you've purchased.
Sean Seward: Yes. If I had to guess, we probably bring about 80% of the market with us and probably 90. So yes, when you come to the market and you purchase that game, it's there, we bag it, you get it when you get to the cashier and you are able to walk right away with it.
It's exciting when you touch something as a blind person, when I'm in the stores, I have to be careful because I'm always touching and feeling and reaching and when you find something you like, you want to play with it right away. As a grown adult, I'm still the person who gets in the Uber after purchasing something, opening my package.
Jonathan Mosen: Yes.
Sean Seward: So I definitely understand and it's one of the more exciting things about the market is when you come in and you walk around that rectangle and you demo these items and "Oh, I like this, I want that." You can take that ticket and you can take it around to the cashier and rest assured that it's going to be coming home with you 90% of the time.
Jonathan Mosen: I am excited about the e-commerce platform just as somebody who wants to shop online, I like the idea of being able to browse and just find out something that maybe I hadn't thought about that I'd like to buy.
But there are people who feel like life's getting a bit too impersonal and they find even a very accessible shop, difficult online. So it's important to emphasize that the e-commerce platform, the catalog.nfb.org is as well as not instead of the traditional channels, right? People are still very welcome to call the Independence Market.
Sean Seward: Absolutely. You are more than welcome to give us a call. We are here in the National Center from 8:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday. We have two great Independence Market specialists, Donita de Gaulle and Phoenix Sullivan, who do a great job interacting with our members on the phone, taking orders from start to finish, answering questions when they come up.
We try to do our best to have one call resolution. We do our best to make sure that you're not talking to any robots, because it does, it can get frustrating and it can get overwhelming even sometimes trying to, again, I mentioned earlier how to figure out how to set this watch. Now Donita and Phoenix won't be able to do that for you.
Those calls, I always ask them to transfer to me because they have to be sure to get to the next member, and if I have time, then I do make time to at least try to get you started or on your way to what you should be doing with this product and how to get it to work, because what good is a product to have if you don't know how or can't use it.
The phone number that you can call us at is 410-659-9314. Again, it's 410-659-9314. And again, we are available 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and that's Eastern Standard Time and when you call in, you just hit option three and that will bring you straight to the Independence Market. And then we're also available at independencemarketatnfb.org, and so you are welcome to shoot us an email. We are prompt with responses to our emails and trying to make sure that you guys get all the information that you need when you do reach out to us.
Jonathan Mosen: And they know their stuff. We had a situation some weeks ago now where we had an Access On listener asking about accessible thermometers, as in body thermometers.
Sean Seward: Yes, yes.
Jonathan Mosen: And I was able to call the Independence Market and get a couple of product recommendations right away and we put that on the podcast. So it's really cool when you get specialists who know the catalog that well and who can just instantly help with an inquiry like that.
Sean Seward: Absolutely. I believe that we study or do our best to study as much as we can about the products. We do not know all of these products inside and out. We did not make them. But we get enough questions centered around them that we try to do our best to learn as much as we can so that we can answer the most commonly asked questions.
And I think that's something that we take pride in as the Independence Market staff is being sure that we can at least get you to a place where your product is at least functional. And if we don't have the answers, we don't hesitate to reach out to make sure that we can find something that can make sure that our members are satisfied.
Jonathan Mosen: Well, that's fantastic and congratulations on getting the catalog.nfb.org website launched and such a smooth system. And I know that this has been a massive team effort and there are many people behind the scenes, software developers, people doing testing. It's been a real team effort getting it out there and the feedback that we're getting from members indicates that all that work was worthwhile and they appreciate it and we look forward to it growing from strength to strength.
Sean Seward: Yes, sir. It is been exciting and I enjoyed talking with you about it today and hope to see some more traffic based off of this podcast.
Jonathan Mosen: You can make a difference with the National Federation of the Blind's Lead and Drive Give 25 in '25. When you give 25 dollars or more between May 15 and July the 1st, you're entered into the Give 25 drawing. Each 25 dollars increment is a chance to win. Your support helps us continue to lead courageously and drive lasting change for blind people across America.
You could win prizes like round trip transportation for two to the 2026 NFB National Convention, hotel accommodations, registration, banquet tickets, or 2,025 dollars cash. Oh, do you want a chance to announce our Give 25 winner at the Convention Banquet?
Become a Federation Challenger, ask friends and family to make donations and indicate that you prompted their giving. We'll have drawings for prizes at Convention for our challengers, and if you are the challenger who prompted the most gifts, you can announce our Give 25 winner at the Banquet.
But that's not all. Be one of the first 100 people to give 100 dollars or more and you'll receive a pair of AfterShokz headphones. I know that'll be of interest to a lot of access on listeners. And thanks to an anonymous donor, up to 25,000 dollars will be doubled. The annual Give 25 drive supports the Kenneth Jernigan Fund, SUN Fund, tenBroek Memorial Fund and the White Cane Fund. You can choose a fund when you donate.
To enter visit nfb.org/give25donate, that's nfb.org/give25donate. You can call 410-659-9314, extension 2430. That's 410-659-9314, extension 2430. Or you can send a check to National Federation of the Blind and mention Give 25 and the fund in the memo. The winner will be announced July 13th, 2025. Thank you for your generosity.
And now on Access On we're going to conclude our look at online meeting platforms. We've taken a look at Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, WebEx, which has provoked a bit of online discussion in terms of how far WebEx has come of late. And we're going to conclude today with Zoom presented by Kennedy Zimnik of our Center of Excellence in Non-Visual Accessibility.
Kennedy Zimnik: I'm going to be talking about Zoom. I'm going to be talking about it from the desktop app perspective, but there is also a very accessible browser mode that you can enter meetings through your browser.
This layout is almost identical to the desktop version. It's very accessible as well, so I'm not going to be talking about the browser too much today. The desktop version is pretty similar if not the same. You're going to get more keyboard shortcuts, more features in the desktop version, so that's why I'm going with that.
You can have a free Zoom account, I'm sure some or a lot of you are on a free Zoom account. That allows you to join meetings and talk and chat and do everything within that meeting without having to purchase an account.
So it's pretty nice if you have a free account, and as long as your host has the business account or a professional account or even a basic plan, you'll be able to use whatever features are in that plan. Or you can have a personal plan, I think it's around 12 dollars to 13 dollars a month. And then you can have a business plan which requires at least 10 people to be on it. That gives you I think the most amount of features.
But basically if you're going to be using Zoom a lot hosting your own meetings, you're going to want to buy a plan. Just the first plan is fine. There is also a Zoom phone plan that's a separate thing. So you can buy this plan and then you can call numbers using Zoom.
I am going to try to show you everything I can with Zoom, given that we're in a Zoom meeting right now. Also, I am cited, I am not a native screen reader user myself, so when I don't have the screen reader on, I will be as descriptive as possible, but of course I'm going to turn NVDA on and let you hear what everything sounds like and show you how to interact with everything using a screen reader.
Zoom Workplace is the whole overarching abilities and software capabilities of Zoom, so you can kind of think of it as Google Workspace has slides and Docs, Meet, things like that. It's not quite as big as Google Workspace of course, but a Zoom workplace has things like you can add people's calendars and there's a scheduler. There's apps that you can include. There's something called Zoom Docs that's a shareable doc. It's kind of like Google Docs that you can work with documents with other people. All open Zoom and let you guys hear all these options and talk about them.
But I just wanted to drive the point forward that Zoom has really grown in how much it can do other than just what we're doing now, doing a video call. Today, I'm not going to be going over all the features of Zoom. I mean, there's so many. I'm mostly going to be talking about in-meeting, some of the peripheral stuff and then the AI tool as well.
I'm personally going to be using NVDA, but it's like Jonathan said before, these online meeting platforms are accessible with any screen reader you use, and most of the time keyboard shortcuts are the same. If you have JAWS in Zoom, there are actually some added keyboard commands specifically for hearing what chat has been said last, but mostly all of the keyboard shortcuts are the same for all the screen readers.
The best way to use Zoom as a screen reader user are keyboard shortcuts, and tabbing using the tab key. There are a lot of interactive elements within Zoom, so using the tab key to get around these different interactive elements, if you don't know the shortcuts is the best way to do it.
Now, you can see my Zoom screen on the screen. There is the main section where you see the person talking. So I might be large on your screen right now. Well, actually if I'm screen sharing, you're seeing what I'm seeing, but I'm just trying to say the main part of the Zoom window in the most basic layout that it comes in will have the person talking in full view in the middle of the screen like a lot of these different apps.
And then you have buttons along the bottom of the window that do different things. You have your audio, you have your video. Most of these buttons have sub-menus, so the audio sub-menu, you get to all your audio settings, that's how you change your audio input and output devices. Video, the same thing. We have our participant button, our participant panel.
This is what you click and then the focus shifts and a new window opens on the right side of your screen, and this is where you can see all the participants. Because I am the host and you guys aren't the host, you guys are just attendees. You're not going to see all the buttons that I have on my screen. So for example, you won't see host tools.
Then you have the chat button. This is the big one that we always get questions on how do I get text out of chat and why is chat so hard to use? It's still a little convoluted how you get the text out of chat. It's not the quickest thing in the world, but I'll show you how to do it using keyboard shortcuts and then tabbing.
You have your share button, this shares your screen and there's been a lot of talk about remote control and letting other people control your device from somewhere else. You can do that. Either you can request to remote control, or when you are sharing you can have somebody remote control your computer.
Then we have our host tools. So I'm actually going to open this host tools and describe each of these security settings that are very, very important if you're going to be hosting a Zoom meeting. You have lock meeting. This stops people from being able to come in so you can't enter the meeting after the host has selected lock meeting. They don't have check boxes but they are check boxes, so it's either check or not checked, lock meeting. Enable waiting room. So we had some talk about the waiting room earlier. Ashley, yes, there is an admit all attendees in that. I don't have the waiting room up, but it is in the participants panel.
And then in the participants panel there are two options. There's admit and then there's admit all. Hide profile pictures makes it so you can't see anyone's profile pictures and you just see their name. And then you have this bottom menu, which is very important, allow all participants to, and then a colon. The first one is share screen.
Now if you can see my screen, you'll notice that I have most of these security settings checked off. This just goes back to Jonathan's point of having a nice clean, calm meeting with not a lot of people unmuting or trying to share their screen or anything. If you've noticed it's really just been Jonathan, Karl and I, and then we're asking people for questions and it's a very calm process and hopefully people aren't too confused with what's going on.
You definitely want to have a lot of control over your Zoom meeting if you want it to run smoothly like it has today. So share a screen is unchecked. Most of the time you don't want participants to just be able to share their screen whenever they want, especially if you're giving a webinar presentation like this chat.
Chat, I do have that one checked because I want people to be able to chat. You can also set it so if you don't want people to be able to chat with everybody in the meeting, you can just have it to set. So you can only chat with the host or co-host. So that's an option.
Rename themselves, I have checked. So yes, I am allowing you to rename yourself. I know I have to rename myself every time because I'm on the CENA account and I want you guys to know I'm Kennedy. So most of the time you want them to be able to rename themselves.
Unmute themselves is unchecked. We don't want everybody to be able to unmute themselves at all times. I mean, just think if I'm talking now and there's five people unmuted and they don't know they're unmuted or you hear their background noise. Hopefully you guys understand the importance of keeping everybody muted if they're not talking.
Start video is unchecked. I mostly have this unchecked because it really helps with the latency and cutting down on the lag of the Zoom meeting. If we had two or 300 people with their video on the latency and lag is just going to go through the roof. So most of the time I just have start video unchecked. It's really up to you. If you have a smaller meeting and you want to be able to have everybody use their camera and interact and being a little bit more personal, like Jonathan was saying before, then you can go ahead and check that. But for the bigger meetings it might be nicer to not have that checked.
Share docs, I don't have that checked, but you can share documents within Zoom. You can share different files, things like that. Share notes. I do have that checked so you can write notes in Zoom and then you can also share those. Collaborate with Zoom apps is unchecked. Set meeting timers is unchecked and then the record to the computer and the request to record to the computer and cloud recording. So we want to be able to control where the recordings are and we want to edit it and put it out ourselves. We don't want people recording, so these are unchecked.
So if you notice I really only have three things checked and honestly I really don't even need share notes checked. I really only have chat and rename themselves. Then you have apps. These are third-party apps that you can connect and use in Zoom. For example, there is a Google Drive app that you can use. There are some different avatar apps so you can customize your avatar a little bit more, things like that. Productivity apps, I mean, we could have a whole presentation on the amount of Zoom apps there are.
Show captions, we talked about this today and we have our captioner here. You can do show captions. There are auto captions if you don't have a captioner, if you want to enable that for smaller meetings or just one-off things and you don't want to hire a whole captioner. There are auto captions that are getting better. They don't do proper nouns as great and the punctuation isn't always the greatest, but they are getting a little bit better.
Polls and quizzes as well. Polls give you a great resource to get feedback from your audience. And then there are also quizzes, so kind of like polls but there are correct answers. So just like a quiz in school.
And then I have pause and stop recording. You can record to your computer or you can record to the cloud. They've really improved their online presence. The interface online, especially around the recordings, has gotten a lot better and you can also see your recordings locally on the desktop app. Transcript. This will give you the transcript of the meeting.
AI companion. The biggest piece that we've been using here at the NFB are the meeting summaries. It gives you kind of a bulleted list of what the meeting was and then it gives different headings as different sections of the meeting. So today it'll probably give Jonathan a section, Karl a section and then me a section and then it just uses AI summary. It's kind of funny sometimes to hear what the AI thinks, how it interprets things, but it does do a relatively good job summarizing things, especially if you weren't at the meeting and you're just sending somebody the notes from the meeting.
Breakout rooms, like Karl was saying, I won't explain too much about them. They're kind of sub Zoom rooms that if you want to open and put people into for smaller group discussion, you can. If you were at either of our virtual convention, we had our presidential suite Zoom room and then we had different breakout rooms so that you could go talk to different people about different things. So that's one use of it.
I'm going to go ahead and turn on my screen reader and show you some useful things. Some of the biggest shortcuts, keyboard shortcuts that you're going to want to know when you are in a Zoom room. The first one is ALT A. I'm not going to do it right now because it would mute me, but if you do ALT A, then it will mute and unmute you.
AUTOMATED: Meeting tools window.
Kennedy Zimnik: Okay, so that was just me muting and unmuting. The way to get around Zoom is by tabbing or using shortcuts. So if you don't know the shortcut, you want to tab around and then you'll be able to get to everything. So if we press tab-
AUTOMATED: End. All Zoom meeting tab. AI feature. Speak window. Video content. Car meeting to audio setting, mute. Currently unmuted. [inaudible 00:45:00] a button.
Kennedy Zimnik: I just tabbed all the way down. I did it backwards so it made me go through everything, but now I'm focused on this audio or mute my audio button. If you can't see the screen, there is a little tool tip that when you hover or focus on it, it gives you the shortcut. For me personally, it helps me remember the shortcuts a little bit. So now that I'm focused on it says mute my audio and then parentheses has ALT plus a.
AUTOMATED: Audio settings menu button.
Kennedy Zimnik: Okay, this one is also a very important one. So audio settings. If you ever come into the meeting and you don't know why people can't hear you, or you can't hear anything in the meeting, then you want to check out your audio settings and make sure your input and output devices are correct. So I'm going to go ahead and click this menu.
AUTOMATED: Mute. Audio settings, menu button. Menu. Select audio. Select a microphone. Microphone, Samson Q9U checked.
Kennedy Zimnik: The first section of this menu is select a microphone. This is where you would select a mic. There are a couple options here for me just because I have a few input devices, but if you only have one or two mics, usually there's one built in on the computer and then maybe there's some on your headphones. I have Bluetooth headphones in right now and there's a mic that I could select, but I want to use this nice mic because it sounds better. So I want to make sure to select microphone Samson Q9U.
AUTOMATED: Headset, Jabra Elite microphone.
Kennedy Zimnik: Now I'm just going to arrow down until I get to my select a speaker. And speaker in this case is audio speaker, not me speaking, but headphones or external speakers.
AUTOMATED: Select a speaker. Speakers. Headphones, Jabra Elite 5, checked.
Kennedy Zimnik: You can have separate microphone and speakers. Jonathan was mentioning earlier about testing your speaker and microphone. This is a really useful feature that I personally use all the time. Visually, if you didn't know, whenever you speak the mic turns green, so it kind of fills up green, the louder... And more you speak, and then the green goes down and the mic... When you're not speaking. Obviously this is a visual indicator. So if you don't know if people can hear you because you don't have a monitor where you can hear your own voice, then you want to go to this test speaker and microphone setting.
AUTOMATED: Test speaker and microphone.
Kennedy Zimnik: So now is a good time as any to talk about the settings in Zoom. How you open the settings menu, and I haven't found a better way to do this other than going to one of these sub menus and then going to either audio settings or video settings and then the settings menu will open up. I don't think that there is a shortcut to open Zoom settings when you're in the Zoom meeting. So again, I selected the audio settings sub menu.
AUTOMATED: Select a micro-
Kennedy Zimnik: And I'm just going to arrow down into the audio settings option.
AUTOMATED: Headset. Micro- same as- select a- headphones, same as- test speaker and microphone. Switch to phone audio. Leave computer audio. Audio settings.
Kennedy Zimnik: Okay, and this last option here is audio settings.
AUTOMATED: Settings window.
Kennedy Zimnik: This is our settings window and it brought me to the audio settings sub menu because that's what I selected. But I want to go back up here to general and just kind of go over some settings.
AUTOMATED: General selected.
Kennedy Zimnik: This is where you have your general settings for Zoom. There's always show meeting controls, show meeting timers, stop my video on audio when my device is locked, integrate Zoom with Outlook, a lot of different things.
It used to be the case that the website had more settings than the desktop app. I'm not sure if that's still the case. I mean, it looks like there's a lot more settings here, but if you can't find a setting on the desktop app, I recommend going to zoom.us. And then using their search function, they have a pretty good search function for their settings, to try and find that setting that you're looking to turn on or off or change.
There are a lot of settings in Zoom then it can be kind of overwhelming. So I just wanted to mention that, that there is a search function on zoom.us
AUTOMATED: Video. Audio. Share screen. Team chat. Zoom apps. Background and effects. Recording. Profile. Statistics. Keyboard shortcuts.
Kennedy Zimnik: If we go into this.
AUTOMATED: Space, grab. Enable global keyboard shortcuts list. Use arrow keys to navigate and tap. Meeting. Group expanded. Change focus to Zoom meeting controls, on top when sharing screen. Control plus ALT plus shift. Global shortcut, check box checked.
Kennedy Zimnik: You can do a couple things here. You can enable the global shortcut, meaning when focus is not on Zoom, the shortcut still works. And then you can also change the shortcut.
AUTOMATED: Control plus ALT plus shift shortcut, press space or enter to edit.
Kennedy Zimnik: And I'm not going to enter anything right now, but you can change these shortcuts to whatever you want. So this is where your shortcuts are.
I'm going to be going over really the main and most important ones, but here are all of them. If you want to go through and explore all the shortcuts.
AUTOMATED: Category list. Keyboard shortcuts selected. Accessibility.
Kennedy Zimnik: In the accessibility options, there's a few things you can do. For the captions, you can change the font size of the captions, you can change the color. You can also change the translation color, which I haven't looked too much into translation, so I can't really speak too intelligently about them.
You also have an always show captions button that makes it so that you don't have to select show captions in the bottom window. So if there are captions, they'll automatically be shown.
AUTOMATED: Slider, closed- toolbar. Toolbar. Always show captions, checkbox not checked. Always show- dim screen, share video grooving. Automatically dim video when flashing images or visual patterns such as stripes. Chat display size. Control plus-slash-100% convo-
Kennedy Zimnik: So you can control and change and increase and decrease the size of the chat text. And then the next piece is what we're really interested in as screen reader users, the screen reader alerts.
AUTOMATED: Screen reader alerts. Screen reader alerts list. Category list- screen- IM chat received.
Kennedy Zimnik: These are where all of the screen reader alerts are held. This is very, very important to change, especially if you're presenting. You might notice, I don't think I have any of these screen reader alerts on.
Especially when you're presenting, if you have screen reader alerts on when people are leaving the meeting, you'll hear Karl has just left the meeting, or Karl has just joined the meeting, or audio muted by host. That might be a good one, so you know that your audio has been muted by the host. Chat as well. So if people chat or instant message you or direct message you, you can have it set to alert you to that. And if you want to check these things, they're just check boxes.
AUTOMATED: Checked alert. Unchecked alert.
Kennedy Zimnik: Okay, so I'm out of settings. Let's continue to go through here and as I go through each function, I'll tell you what the keyboard shortcut is.
AUTOMATED: Stop my video. ALT plus V button.
Kennedy Zimnik: Okay, so stop and start my video is ALT plus V. That one makes sense, video. And then there's also a sub menu here that you can change your video settings.
AUTOMATED: Video settings menu. Select a camera integrated webcam, checked.
Kennedy Zimnik:So because I only have one webcam on my laptop that I'm using right now, there's only one integrated webcam. And then this is also where you-
AUTOMATED: [inaudible 00:53:04] on my background, unchecked. Adjust background and effects. Choose video filter. Choose avatar. Video settings.
Kennedy Zimnik: Video settings will just bring up that settings menu that we were just at. So I'm not going to select that. I have a virtual background. I have our NFB logo repeated. So if you want a more professional-looking meeting or you just don't want people to see what your background is, then either blurring it, or even better a lot of the time is having one of these virtual backgrounds. Zoom is pretty good at cutting you out and kind of making it look not real, but it looks pretty good.
AUTOMATED: Press control plus arrow keys to reorder alert. Open participants panel.
Kennedy Zimnik: The participants panel is also important, especially if you're a Zoom host. You can either, like I did, tab to this button and then press enter. Or you can open the participants panel by ALT and U. Alt plus U.
AUTOMATED: Participants expanded. Press tab for more options and to return to the main meeting controls alert. Participant list, joined.
Kennedy Zimnik: Now I can arrow down through the participant list and this is also where you can hear if people have their hands raised. You can mute and unmute people, you can kick people out of the meeting. Anything to do with that person in the meeting, you can change as the host.
AUTOMATED: Participant list. Kennedy Zimnik, host, me. Screen sharing. Kennedy Zimnik. Mute button. More options for Kennedy Zimnik. Drop down button.
Kennedy Zimnik: When I got to the person I want to interact with, I'm just using myself for now. Once I arrow down, I press the tab key to get to this more options.
AUTOMATED: Menu. Pin.
Kennedy Zimnik: You can pin your video so that it's always visible to everyone.
AUTOMATED: Spotlight for everyone.
Kennedy Zimnik: You can spotlight, which is kind of like pinning, but I don't think it's permanent. I think that's what spotlight is.
AUTOMATED: Add profile picture.
Kennedy Zimnik: This next one is one I use all the time.
AUTOMATED: Rename.
Kennedy Zimnik: So this is where you can rename yourself. And this option is possible because I have it selected. Now as the host, these options are always possible for me, but as users, if you navigate there now, you won't see all these options, except rename. As a Zoom host, if I wanted to hear all the participants-
AUTOMATED: Joined.
Kennedy Zimnik: You can also hear how many participants are in the meeting.
AUTOMATED: Kennedy Zimnik, host, me. Screen sharing. Donna Orgeron. Computer audio, muted. Video, off. Hand raised, selected.
Kennedy Zimnik: Okay, so it gave you some information about this person. I see that Donna has their hand raised. I can either lower hand, ask to unmute, or I can go to their more options. So like before, once I arrowed down to find the person I wanted to find, I press the tab key.
AUTOMATED: Donna Orgeron profile, lower hand button.
Kennedy Zimnik: So that's what I would do if I wanted to lower the hand. I don't want to do that yet because we haven't called on them yet.
AUTOMATED: Ask to unmute button.
Kennedy Zimnik: Ask to unmute. So this is what I'm pressing whenever I say, okay, go ahead and unmute. A window pops up saying, "The host would like you to unmute. Would you like to unmute?" That's what I'll do here in a second because I see a hand raised.
AUTOMATED: More options for Donna Orgeron drop down button.
Kennedy Zimnik: As the host, you can chat to this person directly. You can pin their video, you can make them the host, which would replace me as host. You can make co-hosts, which is what I did for Karl and Jonathan. That gives them the option to go past some of the security settings so that they can unmute themselves without the attendees being able to unmute themselves, and start video without the attendees being able to start video.
So co-host has a lot more privileges than the attendee, but not as many privileges as the host. You can rename people yourself as well. A lot of times if it's a phone number and you want to know who the person is, you can ask them, "Do you mind if I rename you? What's your name?" And then you type it in.
You can assign to type closed caption as well. That's what I did when Beth got here. There are a few options you have to select, but then once you select that, the assign to type closed caption option comes up. You can allow someone to record to the computer, allow to multi-pin, which just means pinning multiple videos at once. Or you can put them back in the waiting room if you want. You can remove them. If it's a nefarious person, you can remove them and then you can also report them.
At the bottom of the participant's window you have an invite button which allows you to invite somebody to the meeting. And then you also have a mute all button. If you already have the security settings like I have that doesn't let attendees unmute, you won't have to do this a whole lot, mute all.
But if you do have 10 people and you don't have that option on and people are allowed to unmute whenever they want, then this mute all button is helpful. So that's what ALT plus M, the shortcut is. It's the mute all as the host.
AUTOMATED: More options to manage all participants. Drop down button.
Kennedy Zimnik: Okay, to manage all participants, let's click that.
AUTOMATED: Menu. Ask all to unmute.
Kennedy Zimnik: So if I clicked this, then all of you would get a message asking you to unmute. That would be pure chaos. I'm not going to do it.
AUTOMATED: Mute participants upon entry, check.
Kennedy Zimnik: Yes, this is a really good one. Mute participants upon entry. So like Jonathan was saying, when you join the meeting, you want to be muted. This kind of gets rid of any error. So as the host, when you guys join, I want you to be muted. So I have this checked.
AUTOMATED: Allow participants to unmute themselves, unchecked. Allow participants to rename themselves, checked. Play sound when someone joins or leaves, unchecked.
Kennedy Zimnik: There is a chime sound that if you really want to hear when people come in or leave, that's possible.
AUTOMATED: Enable waiting room, unchecked.
Kennedy Zimnik: You can enable the waiting room. Hide profile pictures, show not joined participants. So if you invited somebody originally to the Zoom meeting that you created, there will be a list of not joined participants. You can lock meeting or you can clear all feedback.
I just realized I didn't show you guys how to actually create a Zoom meeting. Why don't I go ahead and do that. The home tab is where you can either start a new meeting or schedule a meeting, things like that. So it's a very simple window. So as soon as you open the app, this is the first thing that pops up.
Then we have our meetings tab. So this is where you see all your future meetings. We have our boutiques here. We have our weekly CENA staff meeting here. You can set up reoccurring Zoom meetings. That's what we did here. So this is where you see all of your different meetings.
AUTOMATED: Out of list links, skip to main content.
Kennedy Zimnik: So it is nice. There are skip to main content links within the Zoom app.
AUTOMATED: Previous day button. Next day button. April 2025. List. Clickable more option, clickable more option. Button. Host. Autonomous vehicles boutique planning.
Kennedy Zimnik: So we can tab through here and then also arrow down to here what different meetings we have. I'm running out of time so I won't go into too much detail, but this meetings tab is where you can plan all your meetings.
And then you also have the team chat. So you see all of the past chats that we've ever had are here and they're saved here. If you ever have a chat that you wanted to go back and read, you can do that. There's also the scheduler. I won't get too much into that. It's kind of like an Outlook scheduler or the scheduler on Teams. You can connect your Outlook or your Google calendar to Zoom.
And then more. You can see your surveys. You can connect apps like I was saying. You can see all your notes. There's something called contacts that I don't know a ton about. And then there's workflows, which is kind of like a task manager.
So let's go back into the meeting and continue to go through the buttons and talk about some important shortcuts. One important thing is raising your hand. How you do that is ALT plus Y.
AUTOMATED: Zoom meeting window.
Kennedy Zimnik: Okay, it's giving me kind of an error ding, but I am raising my hand and lowering my hand. And if you had screen reader alerts on and you might would've heard me raising my hand and lowering my hand, things like that. So chat, how we open the chat is ALT plus H.
AUTOMATED: Zoom meeting window. Meeting chat. Expanded. Press tab for more options and to return to the main meeting. Controls alert.
Kennedy Zimnik: The focus automatically jumps to chat. So I'm just going to say something in chat.
AUTOMATED: Hello. This is T. Chat, space. From you, "Hello, this is chat alert."
Kennedy Zimnik: If I wanted to find old chat messages, I use tab and I'm going to shift tab.
AUTOMATED: Tab, control. Collapse all. Click to collapse. Comment list button. Comment list collapsed alert.
Kennedy Zimnik: So that collapse all button was when people reply to other people in the chat, the message thread is expanded. If you want to collapse that thread, then that's how you do that. So I'm going to use control shift U.
AUTOMATED: Chat messages history. Control plus shift plus U, list. You, "Hello, this is chat."
Kennedy Zimnik: So control shift U actually gets the focus into this list of chat. Now I can up arrow and down Arrow to find the chat. I'm looking for.
AUTOMATED: Svetlana Vasilyeva. JAWS has a command to temporarily mute... Ashley Bramlett. Hi. Which version of Teams is he using? They recently updated it. Also is Zoom next or what?
Kennedy Zimnik: Okay, so if we wanted to copy that text that Ashley has sent, once I arrow to the message, I'm going to tab.
AUTOMATED: Ashley Bramlett direct message, "Hi, which version of Teams is-"
Kennedy Zimnik: And then you're going to hear all the different pieces of that message.
AUTOMATED: Reply button. Add reaction button.
Kennedy Zimnik: You can add reaction. So if you have thumbs up or thumbs down or heart, you can add that reaction.
AUTOMATED: More drop down button.
Kennedy Zimnik: The more drop down is the important part.
AUTOMATED: Menu. Copy.
Kennedy Zimnik: Okay, so this is how you copy things out of Zoom chat. You go to the more menu and then you copy.
AUTOMATED: Zoom meeting window.
Kennedy Zimnik: I'm going to do ALT [inaudible 01:03:53]. And that will close... Sorry, that closed and then reopened it and now I can paste. And now the text has been pasted-
AUTOMATED: Space.
Kennedy Zimnik:... into chat.
Jonathan Mosen: That concludes this episode of Access On, the technology podcast of the National Federation of the Blind. To send in a contribution for a future episode, email us, attach an audio clip, or just write it down and send it to [email protected]. That's [email protected].
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To learn more about the National Federation of the Blind, visit our website, nfb.org. Or phone us, 410-659-9314, that's 410-659-9314. And be sure to check out the Nation's Blind podcast right from where you heard this podcast.