Usability/accessibility of web conferencing tools

Hadi Rangin and Marc Thompson, from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, tested the usability and accessibility of four web conferencing applications — Adobe Connect, Elluminate, Saba Central, and Talking Communities — against several criteria. They presented their findings at the Accessing Higher Ground conference in Colorado (November 2009):

• Criteria and study background: http://bargirangin.com/conf/ahg2009/
• Findings: http://bargirangin.com/conf/ahg2009/web_conferencing_tools/800×600/index.html

Their accessibility testing and evaluation of web conferencing applications was geared only toward keyboard and screen reader accessibility, and only for the most essential, common features of these applications. Their tests focused on functional aspects, specifically users’ ability to deploy and operate the application:

1. Setup and Configuration
2. Navigation
3. Styling
4. Operation.

[Links last checked December 2009]