Microsoft Teams and Accessibility – Interpreter Services

How do I include an interpreter with video feed in Teams? 

Any external user (non-NASA) can join a Teams meeting by being included as a meeting attendee on the invite. In Teams, an interpreter’s video feed cannot be pinned to remain on the screen while other users are speaking. Due to this limitation, it is recommended that users with these specific accessibility needs utilize WebEx as an alternative. Please visit When to Use What for more information on NASA’s WebEx offering.

How do I use screen readers in Teams? 

Microsoft has a series of articles on using Teams with screen readers starting at:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/basic-tasks-using-a-screen-reader-with-microsoft-teams-538a8741-f21b-4b04-b575-9df70ed4105d

Note, part of this was written before JAWS changed to turning the virtual pc cursor off by default.  The NASA 508 Compliance Working Group is working with the content writers to get that part updated to not tell people to toggle the virtual pc cursor back on.

A service by Microsoft called the enterprise Disability Answer Desk assists government, business, education and non-governmental organizations  and other enterprise customers with accessibility questions and issue resolution. Reach out to edad@microsoft.com with your questions on Teams for assistance.

There is an issue right now that the Teams product team is working on resolving where it can appear with JAWS or other screen readers that the Teams app is hung because as you tab nothing is read. This most commonly happens after you stop sharing your computer screen but can happen in other scenarios.  If this happens, we have found that pressing Win+up or down arrow to resize the window will resolve the issue.

If this issue is impacting you frequently, using the web version of Teams at http://teams.microsoft.com, is another solution at this time.

Last, you can get a list of shortcuts in Teams by pressing either control and period at any point or control+e to go to the search box and entering/keys.