Subtitles are a written translation of dialogue that is displayed while the audio is playing. This can help make auditory information accessible to those who are hard of hearing or deaf. This can be also useful for people who may be unable to play the sound out loud, unable to distinguish what someone is saying, or may speak a different language than the one spoken in the audio.

Subtitles for People Who Are Hard of Hearing or Deaf

Deaf sensitivity training gives an overview of Deaf culture and effective communication strategies. Participants learn that American Sign Language (ASL) is a distinct language and may be many deaf people’s native language.

Deaf Sensitivity Training

Communication Access Realtime Translation is a live closed cpationing service that prints out what is being said, for those who prefer to read text.


CART Services

Sign language interpreting services include training interpreters at the initial and advanced level and conducting community outreach.

Sign language interpreting services

Assistive listening devices (ALDs) are devices that can be used along with your hearing aids to enhance your listening experience and provide extra help in challenging listening situations.

- Enhance hearing and sound quality in noisy or challenging listening environments
- Offer substantial hearing benefits when used with your hearing aids or without.
 

Assistive listening devices

A hearing aid is a small electronic device worn in or behind the ear that can help deal with mechanical hearing problems, such as conductive hearing loss. It functions by amplifying incoming sound waves to make the vibration of the eardrum and the movement of the ossicles more likely to occur.

Hearing Aids

A cochlear implant is a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing.

-  A microphone, which picks up sound from the environment.
-  A speech processor, which selects and arranges sounds picked up by the microphone.
-  A transmitter and receiver/stimulator, which receive signals from the speech processor and convert them into electric impulses.
-  An electrode array, which is a group of electrodes that collects the impulses from the stimulator and sends them to different regions of the auditory nerve.

Cochlear Implants

Captioning is the process of displaying text while a video is being played. Typically, the text will be a transcription of the video's audio, noting who is speaking along with sound effects and important musical cues. This helps to make films, television shows, and other video recordings accessible to those who are hard of hearing or deaf.

Captioning

There are many types of TRS available for people with hearing and speech disabilities that allow for them to communicate by telephone in a way that is equivalent to communication used by hearing people. 

Telecommunications Relay Services

American Sign Language (ASL) is the primary mode of communication for many deaf individuals in the United States. It is a complete visual language, relying entirely on visual signs and gestures without any verbal components.

American Sign Language (ASL)

For people that are hard of hearing or deaf, it is important that sounds are able to be understood through other means. Often times, subtitles or a transcript are included for people that are hard of hearing.

Rutgers University, Newark

Grinnell College

Pepperdine University

- Visual Accessibility
- Auditory Accessibility
- Mobility
- Seizures
- Learning and Cognitive Accessibility
- Color Theory for Accessibility


Types of Accessibility

To accommodate users who don’t see color differences, you can use other methods to accentuate data, such as high-contrast shading, shape, or texture. 
Applying text labels to data also helps clarify its meaning, while eliminating the need for a legend. 
The right contrast is vital to catching users’ attention in the first place. The vibrancy you choose for your design is likewise crucial to provoking desired emotional responses from users. How they react to color choices depends on factors such as gender, experience, age and culture. In all cases, you should design for accessibility – e.g., regarding red-green color blindness.

Color Theory for Accessibility

When using color, it is important that there is a sufficient color contrast between different elements of your design. Higher contrast makes it easier to see, whereas lower contrasts may make it difficult for users to see in high or low light environments.
W3C recommends the following contrast ratios:
- 3:1 against the background for large text (14 pt bold, 18pt and up)
- 4.5:1 against the background for small text 

Additionally, you should be using visual cues and not just color cues. If you are trying to send an alert whether it is meant to contain an error or not, it is important to have other visual means of conveying a message. This can be done by using words or an icon near the error. Without these other cues, a person who is colorblind may not be able to differentiate between the error field and the fields without errors. 

Visual Accessibility

Auditory Accessibility

Triggers for seizures:
- Screens due to the flicker or rolling images.
- Video games/videos/animations containing rapid flashes or alternating patterns of different colors.
- Intense strobe lights 
- Certain visual patterns, especially stripes of contrasting colors.

As designers, we should understand color and patterns that may cause seizures.
There are certain guidelines that can help especially if your design includes videos, gifs, or animations.

Seizure Accessibility

Individuals with learning disabilities have difficulty with language expression and comprehension. As a result, they rely more on non-verbal indicators to process information from others. 


Learning & Cognitive Accessibility  

People with mobility, circulatory, respiratory, or neurological disabilities use many kinds of devices for mobility. Advances in technology have given rise to new devices that some people with disabilities use as mobility devices, including many veterans injured while serving in the military.

- Wheelchairs
- Crutches, walkers
- Joysticks
- Head pointers
- Trackballs
- Eye- or head-trackers
- Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC)

Learn Before

Related

Learn After