When you organise a meeting or indeed any kind of group event it is never safe to assume that all of your attendees will be fully sighted.
With just a little thought beforehand you can help to ensure that your meetings are as accessible as possible to your potential audience.
Prior knowledge
Where possible it is always good practice to determine individual needs well in advance of the event. When you gather information about personal needs you can ask about preferred reading formats. It may be that a blind or partially sighted person has different preferences for reading material depending on how the material is to be used. For example, someone may prefer to have extensive reading material in electronic format but have notes for the meeting itself in braille.
You may be asked for material in a variety of accessible formats including electronic copy, clear print, large print, braille etc. The key to producing copies in alternative formats lies in well designed files which provide accessible sources of information. Advice on how to produce such files for various types of software is provided within these web pages.
During the meeting
In order to help ensure that blind and partially sighted participants feel included it is good practice to begin by including the basic layout of the room within your normal housekeeping remarks.
It is particularly important for people with sight problems to know who else is attending the meeting with them. This can easily be accomplished by getting attendees to introduce themselves and, if appropriate, their job roles. Similarly, when people are speaking from the floor it is important that they briefly introduce themselves first.
Final thoughts
By adopting these simple techniques you can go a long way towards ensuring that your meetings are inclusive particularly for people with sight problems.
Information is also available on accessible Presentation delivery.