Open Forum

Hello, Community members! We have some exciting news to share – on October 11^th we will be hosting our next Ask the Expert session here in the Open Forum! We will have 2 fantastic experts from Cvent's Product experts here to answer all your questions on Event Planning for Accessibility, how can you ensure accessibility for your event website and registration pages using Attendee Hub, what accessibility features Attendee Hub has, and how can you enable them, how can you customize Attendee Hub's visual elements for people with disabilities, how can you test the accessibility of your event website and more.

Join us on Wednesday, October 11^th, from 10:30 am-11:30 am ET for the live session!  

Our featured experts include: 

• Stephen Cutchins- Senior Manager - Accessibility. Technology 
• Ron Justice- Principal Solutions Consultant, Enterprise
  
  

Ask your questions and learn how tech and content can be used to make events more accessible for people with cognitive impairments, how can attendees with hearing impairments access and participate in virtual sessions, and how you see the future of event planning evolving to better accommodate people with disabilities. Get all the tools/information you need to get started and more. Ask your questions and get real-time answers from the expert panel of the Cvent Product experts.

Reminders from our Community Team on how the Ask the Expert session will work: 

Add your questions on the "Event Planning for Accessibility with Cvent" below any time before or during the Ask the Expert session. Be sure to look at other Community users' questions and click Recommend to those that you would also like to learn more about.   

You can expect to see answers from our experts starting at 10:30 am ET on Wednesday, October 11^th. Follow the thread by clicking the blue star and be ready to add follow-up questions and discuss further with other users. We'll wrap up the event at 11:30 am ET, so be sure to join us then.  

We look forward to reading your questions! 

Note: This post contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Specifically, any unreleased services, features, functionality, or enhancements referenced in this discussion post or in other public statements are not yet generally available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who license any solutions from Cvent, Inc. should make their purchase decisions based on features that are currently available. We have based these forward-looking statements on our views with respect to future events and development plans as of the date that they were made. We assume no obligation for and do not intend to update any such forward-looking statements. 

#AsktheExpert
#AttendeeHub
#MeetingsManagement
#Creating/ManagingEvents

#Accessibility

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Megha Jetley
Manager
Cvent Marketing Department
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Hey experts, 

What are the top 3 items everyone must do now for an accessible site?

Great question, I love a good top 3!

The good news is that most of the heavy lifting is done by our software itself, planners need to do very little.  We have clients frequently ask what they need to do, for example, to make their sites work with screen readers. For the most part, our software simply works with assistive technology like screen readers.  Field labels are read, error messages are announced, users can successfully navigate with the keyboard, etc.

There are a few things that planners need to do when creating sites.  By far, the top 3 things to ensure are:

1.      Add proper alt text to images.

2.      Ensure correct color contrast ratios are met (usually 4.5:1).

3.      Maintain correct heading structure.

We have articles coming on Knowledge Base soon, but until then WebAIM has some great info here:

https://webaim.org/techniques/alttext/

https://webaim.org/articles/contrast/

https://webaim.org/techniques/semanticstructure/#headings

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Stephen Cutchins
Senior Manager-Accessibility

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What procedures are in place to ensure the availability of accessibility for attendees?

Hi Judy!

For "availability of accessibility", I'm going to assume you mean accessibility of Cvent products themselves, but please correct me if I am wrong.

For the most part, Software products like ours need to be natively accessible.  From design to development, accessibility has to be baked into the software development lifecycle.  The good news is that we do that heavy lifting for you!  We test our products to make sure they work for keyboard-only users and that they work with assistive technologies such as screen readers and Braille displays.  We develop our products to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA, which is the standard that most clients require.  While our products are not yet fully compliant, our attendee-facing products like Registration, Attendee Hub, and OnArrival have been extensively tested and the results are documented in the product Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs) that are available from your account rep.

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Stephen Cutchins
Senior Manager-Accessibility

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Beyond visual accessibility, how can I optimize accessibility within registration, registration website and/ or emails?

Thanks for the question, Hallie!

For Registration, I always tell clients that their attendees appreciate being asked specific questions with regards to their accessibility needs.  We tend to be very good at asking about dietary requirements but aren't so good about accessibility needs.

For example, depending on the event, on your Registration page you can ask users if they require captions, a sign language interpreter, audio description, if they will be accompanied by a personal care assistant, if they use a service animal, or if they use a mobility device. Let's say they let you know that they use a mobility device and specify that they are in a wheelchair, and that they will be accompanied by both a service animal and a persona care assistant.  You now know that you need two chairs removed along the main aisle during presentations, one for the service animal and one for the user and their wheelchair, and that the third seat must be reserved for their personal care assistant.  Moreover, you need to provide their assistant with free admission (usually excluding food costs.)  While you can't ask directly about disabilities ("are you Deaf") you can ask about necessary accommodations ("will you need captions") and attendees seem to respond positively knowing that you care about their experience.

For the website itself, see my answer (post #3) above about alt text, color contrast, and heading structure.

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Stephen Cutchins
Senior Manager-Accessibility

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Can you highlight the safeguards Cvent currently has in place to ensure registrations meet minimum accessibility standards?  Are there any additional tools on the roadmap that will help make sure all sites created are accessibility friendly?

Our safeguards and how Cvent is compliant regarding accessibility guidelines can be found in our VPAT's (Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates). We have VPAT's for the following products: Event Website & Registration, Attendee Hub Web & App, Event Diagramming, OnArrival, Meeting Request Forms, & Access Portals. 

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Ron Justice
CventUnited States
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Hey experts,

Are there accessibility features for translation available in Cvent Attendee Hub?

Hi Elena! 

Cvent Attendee Hub does offer translation capabilities across the product, including subtitles on videos. While we don't categorize translation/language support as "accessibility", we are committed to making our platform as inclusive and user-friendly as possible for all attendees. Thank you for your question.

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Stephen Cutchins
Senior Manager-Accessibility

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Regarding captions/subtitles we offer various options for customers who are using the Attendee Hub. For recorded content, customers can take advantage of our auto generated captions/subtitles as well as upload their own VTT and audio files. For live streamed sessions we offer partnerships with various customers to support this function. 

What plans are there for updates to Social Tables regarding ADA accessibility for floorplans? Items like wheelchair lifts, ramps, ADA symbols or even a toggle for minimum aisles to accommodate ADA would be excellent features for floorplans.

Hi Ashley, this is a great feedback. These features are apart of our future roadmap. For now customers can upload images to the diagram and scale them to identify lifts, ramps, etc..

Hi Team Cvent
Any advice on how to choose colors for a presentation (ppt) for color blindness?

Hi Jon!  Great question, especially since my answer applies to all electronic content (PPT, websites, emails, etc.) 

When choosing colors, the two primary things to consider are that color should not be the only means by which information is relayed to the user, and that proper color contrast is met.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) creates the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).  Most organizations and government agencies follow WCAG 2.1 AA, which has success criteria 1.4. for Use of Color and 1.4.3 for Contrast (Minimum). Links and text are pasted below.

An example of "Use of Color" would be where you are adding a table that has a red column with bad numbers and a green column with good ones.  Someone who is color vision deficient may not be able to tell the difference, so you would add text labels to state what the numbers are, and/or add patterns to the columns along with a legend so users can tell the difference between the columns without being able to distinguish between the colors.

1.4.1 Use of Color see https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/use-of-color.html that states:

Color is not used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.

1.4.3 for Contrast (Minimum) see https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum.html that states:

The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, except for the following:

Large Text

Large-scale text and images of large-scale text have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1;

Incidental

Text or images of text that are part of an inactive user interface component, that are pure decoration, that are not visible to anyone, or that are part of a picture that contains significant other visual content, have no contrast requirement.

Logotypes

Text that is part of a logo or brand name has no contrast requirement.

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Stephen Cutchins
Senior Manager-Accessibility
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heyy
How can real time translation work? Accessibility for the Japanese market specifically. Also how does Cvent work with color blindness? Any tips?

Andrew,

Are you referring to translation of the Event Website, Registration or Attendee Hub text? Or referring to content that is being shared to attendees via the Cvent Video Player. If you are referring to the latter, we offer various options via our partners to provide captions and/or audio interpretation for live streamed content. For any text for the Event Website, Registration or Attendee Hub, Cvent will auto translate any default, while allowing for planners to upload the translated text for the custom text.

Hi Andrew, happy to answer your question about color blindness. Most of this should be answered by Jon's question about on "advice on how to choose colors for a presentation (ppt) for color blindness".  We develop our software products to WCAG 2.1 AA, for color they have:

1.4.1 Use of Color see https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/use-of-color.html that states:

Color is not used as the only visual means of conveying information, indicating an action, prompting a response, or distinguishing a visual element.

1.4.3 for Contrast (Minimum) see https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/contrast-minimum.html that states:

The visual presentation of text and images of text has a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1, except for the following:

Large Text

Large-scale text and images of large-scale text have a contrast ratio of at least 3:1;

Incidental

Text or images of text that are part of an inactive user interface component, that are pure decoration, that are not visible to anyone, or that are part of a picture that contains significant other visual content, have no contrast requirement.

Logotypes

Text that is part of a logo or brand name has no contrast requirement.

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Stephen Cutchins
Senior Manager-Accessibility

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Hey there 
What steps does Cvent have in place to assist with creating a inclusive and accessible website? Examples - closed captions, audio descriptions, live support, etc. Anything in place to help alert planners of these needs. Question #2: Is there an onboarding team/specialist who is able to assist if we have particular ADA needs for either registration or the HUB - if so how can they help? 

Hi Lesley,

There are multiple ways that Cvent can assist with creating an inclusive and accessible website. Please see below:

The good news is that most of the heavy lifting is done by our software itself, planners need to do very little.  We have clients frequently ask what they need to do, for example, to make their sites work with screen readers. For the most part, our software simply works with assistive technology like screen readers.  Field labels are read, error messages are announced, users can successfully navigate with the keyboard, etc.

There are a few things that planners need to do when creating sites.  By far, the top 3 things to ensure are:

1.      Add proper alt text to images.

2.      Ensure correct color contrast ratios are met (usually 4.5:1).

3.      Maintain correct heading structure.

During registration, some of our planners will even ask question about needed accommodations for customers (i.e will you need a sign language interpreter?) will help you better plan for your event. 

Regarding captions/subtitles we offer various options for customers who are using the Attendee Hub. For recorded content, customers can take advantage of our auto generated captions/subtitles as well as upload their own VTT and audio files. For live streamed sessions we offer partnerships with various customers to support this function.  Other things available in the Attendee Hub can include language interpretation which is available via our partners. For more information, please reach out to your Cvent representative. 

Lastly, with customer support your CS resource (that works closely with our Accessibility Team) will be able to provide tips and best practices that can be implemented in Cvent. 

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Ron Justice
CventUnited States
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Hi session experts,

Is there a full list of all the accessibility features available from Cvent?

Not at this time, but we can take this back to our content team to consider.

I was wondering if push notifications are possible using VHA and aiming high if those could also be in audio

Good Morning Maria,

Great question. At this time we do not support the ability to have audio functionality with Push Notifications; however I will be more than happy to submit this an enhancement request to our product team. 

hey 
Should events for the disabled be done as separate sessions to better accommodate or is it preferred to run the session at the same time with some modifications?

Hi Grace, thanks for the question!

I would suggest that you not have separate sessions for your attendees with disabilities as that may lead to your attendees feeling excluded and treated differently possibly in a negative way.  While the intent may be good, those who need accommodations would surely feel left out, and may miss relevant information (like attendee questions) in these separate sessions.
Websites used to try this in the past in that they would have separate "accessible" versions that were usually stripped of content.  These "separate but equal" websites were not very well received and instead now it is best to have one site that is fully accessible.

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Stephen Cutchins
Senior Manager-Accessibility

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Hi everyone! Thank you for these fantastic questions! Our experts will be live in ~15 minutes to begin responding to your questions.  
If you have any additional questions or thoughts, don't hesitate to share them here.  

Hey experts

How will accessibility options interact with / affect my branding and theme? high contrast color changes, fonts etc.

In various parts of the platform we offer advanced settings for colors & moods. With Safe Color Mode this will help ensure your branding guidelines are within accessibility standards. 

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Megha Jetley
Manager
Cvent Marketing Department
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Hello everyone,

We're excited to announce the launch of our new Learning Center dedicated to accessibility! 🎉

This comprehensive resource is designed to support our community with a wide range of materials, including articles, videos, how-to guides, and more. Whether you're looking to enhance your understanding of accessibility or seeking practical tips to implement it in your projects, this Learning Center has something for everyone.

Check it out here: Accessibility Learning Center

Huge thanks to @Stephen Cutchins, @Ron Justice, and team for their dedication to bringing more knowledge around this topic to Cvent Community!