A comparative study of disabled people's experiences with the video conferencing tools Zoom, MS Teams, Google Meet and Skype
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21452571 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marion Hersh (0000-0002-4610-8266, Biomedical Engineering, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland, corresponding author), Barbara Leporini (0000-0003-2469-9648, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione "Alessandro Faedo"), Marina Buzzi (0000-0003-1725-9433, Institute of Informatics and Telematics) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 43 |
| Issue | 15 |
| Pages | 3777-3796 |
| Publication date | 2024-11-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Behaviour and Information Technology (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0144-929X • E-ISSN: 1362-3001 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/0144929x.2023.2286533 |
| OpenAlex | W4390730708 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 25 |
The paper presents a comparative mixed methods study of the accessibility and usability for disabled people of four video conferencing tools, Zoom, MS Teams, Google Meet and Skype. Useable responses were obtained from 81 disabled people with diverse characteristics, mainly in the UK, though some groups had low representation. None of the tools was considered fully accessible and useable. Zoom was both the most commonly used and the most frequently preferred (56.1%) tool, with MS Teams second in usage and a trailing second in preferences (15.9%). It was considered to have better captioning, but otherwise to generally be a poor second to Zoom. Skype was the most commonly used before lockdown, but was considered dated and its limited use was mainly social, whereas the other tools were also used in work and education. The results were used to draw up separate lists of recommendations for developers and meeting organisers and hosts, as the study also identified actions for organisers and hosts to improve meeting accessibility. Developer recommendations include several easy to set customisation and user friendly interface features, involving disabled people and specific accessibility features, including compatibility with assistive technology, keyboard shortcuts for all functions and automatically-on high quality captions
Disabled people · Human–computer interaction · Multimedia · Videoconferencing · World Wide Web · Zoom · Applied Psychology · Assistive Technology in Communication and Mobility · Computer Science · Digital Accessibility for Disabilities · Engineering · Psychology · Subtitles and Audiovisual Media
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |