Accessible Virtual & Hybrid Programs

July 2, 2021 // Insights

Virtual & Hybrid Programs – Are you Making Them Accessible For All?

Great communication is a key factor of a successful business, and one of the largest building blocks of communication is comprehension. Even the most eloquently worded message can be completely lost on a receiver if they’re unable to understand it. In order to truly call an event or program successful, companies need to make sure they’re removing potential barriers to comprehension for all of their attendees. metroConnnections is well-trained in producing robust event experiences for people that are hard of hearing as well as for non-English speaking attendees.

By offering a generous range of closed captioning and translation services for both virtual and hybrid events, metroConnections has found ways to boost comprehension for all attendees, no matter how large (or small) their comprehension barriers may be. “Our clients spend countless hours on creating content, and that’s why it’s so important that it be delivered to all attendees,” explains metroConnections Sales Manager Kendra Kruse, “We want to help companies expand their reach and make sure that their message is being received in the manner that attendees need it to be!”

Gathering information to better serve attendees

During the registration phase of your event or program, metroConnections will work to uncover the factors that need to be considered for your event to be accessible for all by asking attendees about their needs in a respectful and discrete manner. Once those needs have been identified, metroConnections will coordinate a wide variety of resources in order to seamlessly integrate solutions into the event’s programming.

“Registration starts the dialogue, and that’s where our team comes in,” says Kruse. “We work hard to discover solutions so that attendees can be assured they’ll have a successful experience.”

Closed captioning – An essential tool for building comprehension

metroConnections works with industry leading partners to offer comprehensive captioning services that can make it easier for all of your attendees to understand a presentation, regardless of whether or not they’re hard of hearing.

Captions are integrated directly into metroConnections digital presentation platform and can be offered on both pre-recorded and live virtual and hybrid events. By utilizing live captioning from trusted partners, metroConnections can ensure a much higher degree of accuracy than the automatic captions generated by videoconferencing apps–a crucial feature for businesses that are attempting to communicate important technical and statistical details within their presentations.

Captioning can provide additional value for attendees after event day as well. Captions can be exported to create an exact transcript of a speaker’s presentation, providing a useful resource for attendees to consult later for information.

“Captioning boosts your audience’s attention and comprehension, as well as the accessibility of your content,” Kruse explains.

In addition to both closed and open captioning, metroConnections also offers American Sign Language (ASL) interpretive services for hybrid and virtual events in a variety of different presentation formats to best suit attendees’ needs.

Many languages, one message

With the growth of virtual and hybrid events in the past two years, metroConnections’ clients have been able to expand their reach to employees and colleagues located all over the world, making it all the more important for programming to be offered in more languages than just English. metroConnections can accomplish this by offering both software-based and live translation services depending on the client’s needs.

During a recent event for an enterprise-level client, metroConnections’ team was able to translate the entirety of the programming into five different languages simultaneously. In another recent presentation, metroConnections was able to provide ASL interpreters for several attendees with hearing loss for several presentations and breakout sessions across a multi-day event.

“It’s always been a priority for us to make sure that the events that we produce are accessible for all attendees, but lately we’ve been seeing that these services requested by our clients more frequently” says Kruse “Now that we have the capacity to offer virtual and hybrid versions of these same accessibility services, companies have a real incentive to take advantage of them.”

Our expert staff will help to boost attendee comprehension and ensure your event is accessible by all. Contact us today to get started.