This week I logged on to a Zoom webinar that had chat enabled. The meeting had a large attendance. The chat quickly filled up with dozens of people sharing their city or country, and later commenting on technical problems.

Some screen reader users had a difficult experience due to the heavy use of the chat. Here are three bits of feedback:

A comment reading "All this chatting is very disruptive to those of us using screen readers"

A question reading "Can people please stop messing up the chat? The preview is distracting."

A comment reading "The fact that so many of you type in the chat while the presentation is underway shows how few of you use screen readers."

What is your opinion on this aspect of videoconference chat etiquette? I’m not talking about offensive or dangerous content–just the volume of content.

  • Should frivolous chat messages be avoided, so that screen reader users don’t miss important chat messages?
  • Or is important that chat can be a chaotic free-for-all, to get the full Zoom experience?
  • Does anyone have personal experience with this?
  • Does anyone have a preferred etiquette guide that covers this?

Thumbnail image is an illustration of over a dozen empty word balloons, overlaid on each other in a chaotic mess. Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay