Web accessibilty for the deaf and hearing impaired

As I’ve mentioned before, my grandparents are hearing impaired. Even though they learned to adapt, I have been amazed at the impact the Internet has had on their lived. My grandmother still prints out every email she receives and saves it in a binder because she doesn’t fully trust that box made out of plastic and metal, but they instant message with friends across the country and can conduct business that would have been five times as hard through mail or by interpreter.

However, the Internet is evolving into a world rich with sight and sound. If a Web site communicates instruction through audio or a video includes sound, deaf and hearing impaired people are locked out. Through simple additions and techniques, the sounds of the Web can be made available to everyone.

From Mike Paciello:

The World Wide Web, perhaps more than any interface before it, presents an incredible opportunity to people with disabilties. In addition to providing a communication protocol that is inherently accessible and relatively easy to use, people with disbilities find that they can pursue education, employment and entreprennerual opportunities never before thought possible.

However opportunity always implies challenge. One of those challenges is found in the current evolution of the Web: moving it from a text-based interface to a multmodal, multimedia operating environment. It is this environment that presents barriers to the deaf.

For example, each time a web site includes a video clip which also includes sound, the deaf are locked out.

The solution is relatively simple: implement closed captioning. You may know that captioning is now an industry standard for televisions. As a result, you see televisions with built in capitioning functionality. Deaf users are no longer required to purchase a separate captioning box. For general information about captioning please refer to the Closed Captioning Web http://www.weizmann.ac.il/deaf-info/cc/ Additionally, you may refer to http://www.verbatim.com/ which features closed captioning.

Current implementions of “Web captioning” are not the same as television captioning. Rather than captioning within the video clip, Webmasters are including captioning or script indicators on their pages. These indicators are located in close proximity to the video clip hyperlink (or image). When a user clicks on the captioning indicator the script of the clip is displayed.

One of the better implementations of Web captioning can be found at the Web site of Boston-based public broadcasting station WBGH http://www.wgbh.com/ Among many beneficial services provided for people with disabilities, WGBH runs the National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), directed by Larry Goldberg. On the WGBH Educational Foundation/Access Instructions web page http://www.wgbh.org/wgbh/pages/access/accessinstructions.html , you will see an example of web captioning.

There are a couple of guidelines you should consider before implementing captioning on your web page:

• Be sure to inform users that you have implemented captioning. Providing a specific set of instructions on your homepage is ideal.
• Try to use a textual captioning indicator rather than an image or icon. This makes it easier for the deaf-blind to access the indicator. If you do use an image, be sure to provide alternate text.
• Remember to include the size of the video file. This is a usability measure that will assist all users. Likely you will find that many users will preview the script before they download the video clip.

Increased accessibilty on the Web for the deaf and hearing impaired can also be improved by ensuring that all emmitted messages (error or information, system or application) are displayed through visual cues as well as audible. This is particularly true for browsers, authoring tools, and public kiosks.

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Tags: hearing impaired, web accessibility