Gather meeting software accessibility concerns re NarraScope 2022 interactive fiction conference

I was hoping to see some of this year’s online NarraScope interactive fiction conference in July. But I’ve just found out that it’s running on Gather this year, a meeting/conference system based largely on a virtual model of a conference area in the computer, top-down old-style graphics with little person avatars etc. Which all sounds fine and dandy, but I’ve known people struggle with it at large events. And for disability reasons I don’t think I could manage it successfully. It can also work very poorly sometimes on mobile devices, and I would be tuning in from bed. Luckily the talks will be recorded for later viewing, speaker permissions allowing. But I’m not signing up to attend this live. I have voiced my concerns about this software to the organisers, but it would be too late to change their plans now. Interactive fiction has a very large number of disabled users, many of whom might struggle to use Gather, for different reasons eg blind or partially sighted, hand control problems, cognitive issues re processing lots of info etc.

Gather meeting software in action