Abstract
With the development of network and technology, it is common for people to use real-time communication software to interact with friends and send messages in our daily life. The current real-time communication software can support image and voice transmission, and users can join on-line meeting or long-distance learning. When there are too many participants in an on-line meeting, sighted users have to pay attention to several video frames to find out who is the speaker. However, the visually impaired users encounter difficulties in acquiring information via image transmission, and then some misunderstandings might occur. In this study, recommendation of user interface layout is proposed with analysis of FSM-GOMS in accordance with necessary functions in on-line meeting. And a communication condition for on-line meeting with auditory interface is designed to give visually impaired users indication of speakers’ identification. An experiment was conducted to evaluate how an on-line meeting was affected by the numbers of participants. When the numbers of participants increase, the communication system can provide an audio cue to users. This study proves that the consideration for designing an accessible interface for visually impaired users is helpful to communication in online meeting. It is expected that the developers of the real-time communication software and online meeting systems can take visually impaired users into account in the future, and let them make good use of the Internet resource.