Deafness

What is Deafness?

Deafness can be defined in two ways: physiologically and culturally. In the physiological definition, deafness is defined as the inability to hear well enough for the purposes of processing information and communicating. In the cultural definition, being Deaf (an uppercase Deaf is used when referring to the cultural group) is defined by participation in a particular community of deaf people who share in a rich cultural history with its own distinct language-American Sign Language (ASL). For additional information, the National Association of the Deaf (NAD) provides a comprehensive definition of the differences between being hard of hearing, deaf, and Deaf on their website.

Deafness and hearing loss can be caused by a variety of factors such as childhood illnesses, pregnancy-related illnesses, injuries to the head, excessive or prolonged exposure to noise, heredity, and aging. Due to these factors, when accessing information over the Internet, Deaf people rely on images, textual content, and assistive devices that translate the audio to text or American Sign Language.

Challenges/ Barriers on the Internet

Though Deaf people can already access textual content over the Internet, assistive devices are used to facilitate access to audio content. It is important to keep in mind that when American Sign Language (ASL) is the person's first language, reading extensive amounts of text rather than images can pose challenges and slow comprehension of the content. In addition, the overall literacy levels of Deaf people are lower due to the fact that written English is a second language for them.

Each time Deaf and hard of hearing people access information over the Internet, they are confronted with a range of challenges and barriers. Some of the most common include:

Key Concerns for Deaf people:

• Lack of captions or transcripts for audio on the Web
• Lack of captions or transcripts for multimedia on the Web
• Lack of content-related images in pages full of text-which can slow comprehension for people whose first language may be a signed language instead of a written/ spoken language
• Requirements for voice input on Websites
• Density or complexity of text on the page-overall literacy levels of Deaf people are lower due to the fact that written English is a second language for them.

Key Concerns for Hard of Hearing people:

• Lack of captions or transcripts for audio
• Lack of captions or transcripts for multimedia on the Web

Solutions and Guidelines

• Provide all auditory information in visual form (i.e. captioning and text alternatives)
• Provide all multimedia information in captions and transcripts and enable synchronized captions of audio and description of video. Consider also providing the information in ASL (with the use of software that displays sign language using animated characters) or captions with images.
• Ensure that all visual cues are noticeable even if the user is not looking straight at the screen. (i.e. blinking error messages)
• Support the ShowSounds feature that allows a user to assign an option to display a visual cue for all audio alerts.
• Present content by using pictures, images, and symbols as much as possible
  • Bullet content
  • Use PowerPoint
  • Offer definitions to terms
• Ensure compatibility with personal style sheets
• Support teletypewriter (TTY) software. Generally TTY is used over phone lines, however, a personal computer can also be configured to function as a TTY by adding a special modem that supports both the PC code (ASCII) and the code used by most older TTYs (Baudot).
• Support video relay systems. Video relay systems allow the user to videoconference over IP with a live video interpreter via a computer with a video camera. The video interpreter signs the telephone conversation with an ASL user and voices to a hearing person via standard telephone.

Resources

There are many resources and tools on the Internet to guide web developers in building universally accessible websites for Deaf and hard of hearing people.

1. Making a Website Accessible
2. Why Design Accessible Web pages?
3. W3C Online Student Who is Deaf Scenario
4. Accessible Web page design: Making IMAGEMAPs Accessible
5. Media Access Generator (MAGpie)-is an authoring tool that helps to make Web and CD-ROM multimedia accessible to persons with disabilities. The tool creates captions for audio descriptions.

Video Relay Systems

Video relay systems allow the user to videoconference over IP with a live video interpreter via a computer with a video camera. The video interpreter signs the telephone conversation with an ASL user and voices to a hearing person via standard telephone.

• CSD Video Relay
• Sprint Video Relay Services