I have found that pressing JAWS + S until you hear ‘'”None” turns off screen echo, which stops JAWS from announcing who has entered or left the meeting.

Love in Christ
Marty
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
Ephesians 6:12, 13

Hi,

So, are the announcements of people entering or leaving considered an alert?  Like others, I’ve been thrown into learning zoom.

If those are alerts then they can be turned off, but it looks like all alerts will be turned off.  This is from pressing insert+h in Zoom with Jaws.

.

Link‑ To enable or disable alerts, press Alt+Windows+S.
Link‑ To hear the most recent alert, press Alt+Windows+A.
Link‑ To be reminded of whether alert announcements are enabled or disabled, press JAWSKey+Tab.
To review the last 10 alerts or messages, press Control+1 through to Control+0. Press twice quickly to virtualise.
Link‑ To only allow chat messages when pressing Control+1 through to Control+0 press control+F5.

Functionality has also been added to report:
The state of recording when ALT+R is pressed. This is a keystroke which enables or disables the recording.
Whether the recording has been paused or is resuming when ALT+P is pressed.
Whether the audio has been muted for all participants when ALT+A is pressed.

The controls for scheduling and creating a meeting should also be easier to understand.

Hi all,

Below is a message I just sent to Zoom Tech Support. If you agree with my opinion, please take a little time to send them similar requests. It’s more effective if several people speak out.

Regards,

David

Hello,

I would like to report on a general problem, not specific to any meeting, and make some suggestions. I am blind and use the JAWS screen reader program. Like millions of other people, many blind people have increased their use of the invaluable Zoom platform to stay in touch and conduct business meetings in these challenging times.

As you know, when participants enter and leave meetings, it is announced. I assume visual participants see something on the screen. Screen reader users hear “John Smith has entered the meeting,” or “Sally Jones has left the meeting.” Because we are forced to hear this audio, it often seriously disrupts meetings, especially those with a large number of participants. Presenters who use screen readers are frequently interrupted and thrown off stride. Participants often have to ask presenters to repeat what they just said. It can even be awkward and embarrassing. Imagine yourself in a meeting conducted in a physical conference room. In the middle of a presentation, somebody suddenly blurts out “My name is John Smith and I am leaving the meeting.” He then gets up and walks out the door. Of course, everybody would be shocked at this outrageous behavior. A milder form of this can happen in Zoom meetings. To be perfectly frank, the main reason I leave meetings early is that I no longer think the discussion worth my time. But I don’t want to be forced to publicly proclaim it. One thing I recently figured out is to rename myself as a fake phone number. That way, when I leave nobody knows who I am. But I should not be compelled to resort to such devious behavior.

While there are ways that blind people can mute their screen reader program, that only works for those individuals who know the keystrokes. It does not help improve overall meeting quality for the other participants. And if I am a presenter, I may need to hear my screen reader program, so I must unmute it, causing me to hear this annoying verbiage again.

Giving participants and hosts the option to disable entry and exit notifications would greatly improve the Zoom meeting experience for screen reader users. I would suggest the following specific modifications to the Zoom app on the PC.

For participants:

• In the Settings area accessed through the Home Tab, provide an option for individuals to mute their individual entry/exit notification.
• Provide an additional option to mute such notifications for all participants.
• In the Participants List area of the Meeting Controls window for meetings you are currently participating in, add a disable entry/exit notifications in the More options for individual participants dropdown.

For hosts:

• In the meetings Tab of the PC app, when scheduling meetings, add an option to disable exit/entry notifications in the Advanced options dropdown.
• In the Participants List area of the Meeting Controls window for meetings you are currently hosting, add a disable entry/exit notifications in the More options for All participants dropdown.

It would be advisable to make similar modifications in the appropriate places in the smartphone app.

Thank you for taking time to consider these ideas and hopefully implement them . I strongly believe that if You make these modifications in a future update, it will greatly improve the Zoom meeting experience for blind and visually impaired users of the Zoom Cloud platform.

Regards,

David Kingsbury

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