Crowd-source testing helps drive Webex accessibility

Applause, which provides digital quality and crowd-sourced testing, has worked with Cisco to ensure ongoing accessibility assessments of Webex Suite and to achieve consistent conformance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) standards for eight Webex products to date. 

Cisco said it has tripled its team of “accessibility champions”, who ensure inclusivity is baked into the overall product development process, which has helped the company to reduce software development time and reduce bugs.

“At Webex, we focus on people and improving their collaboration experiences. This focus fuels our innovation to remove the barriers of geography, language, personality and familiarity with technology,” said Travis Isaacs, chief design officer at Webex by Cisco.

Applause runs an independent community of software testers. This, it said, offers a global perspectives with access to numerous devices, operating systems and platform configurations to reflect Cisco’s broad user base. It also recruits testers with permanent disabilities, such as blindness, deafness or mobility or cognitive differences, as well as temporary disabilities from injury or illness and degenerative conditions.

“At Applause, we want to make sure apps, devices and experiences are not just functional and intuitive, but that they are also enjoyable and perform optimally for everyone, everywhere,” said Bob Farrell, vice-president of solution delivery and accessibility at Applause.

“Our ability to engage experts and end users in our community who can provide highly relevant, actionable feedback drives comprehensive quality and speed, with fewer and fewer bugs to address before launch. With a knowledge base and training to complement accessibility assessments, user experience research and testing, we’ve been able to create a programme that is thriving.”

In July 2024, Computer Weekly spoke to Suleyman Gokyigit, CIO at Fire, a US organisation which defends the rights of free speech, who is completely blind, about the need to improve accessibility. Gokyigit said that artificial intelligence (AI) offers an opportunitiy to boost the user experience in software, which helps to improve accessibility. He believes AI’s potential reaches beyond making software usable for people with disabilities.

“The ability to have an actual conversation or being able to control your computer by speaking to it makes a lot of sense,” he said.

In 2023, Cisco began working with Voiceitt, an AI-powered program for people with speech impediments. The technology for Voiceitt learns the unique speech patterns of each user, which is then used in WebEx to help ensure what people say is better understood by others. It also offers real-time captioning and transcription.

According to Webex’s Accessibility in the Webex app document, the product offers a high contrast mode, custom layouts and keyboard shortcuts for users who are visually impaired. Webex also supports the use of screen readers, with Cisco saying it is committed to the continuous expansion of WebEx compatibility with screen readers.

For users with hearing impairments, it provides closed captions, and Cisco enables Webex conference organisers to assign interpreters – including sign language – to a meeting. Webex said the app enables users to customise a view for deaf and hard-of-hearing users to ensure the interpreter video is always visible.