The Digital World Without Sound

I often think about what my life would be like if I was blind, deaf, paralyzed, or physically handicapped in some way. When I put myself in the shoes of those with these handicaps, the feeling of how challenging life would be overwhelms me. I can only imagine that the anxiety might be worse for those living life this way. So, getting any type of help to navigate this world is extremely important for those who are disabled. And that includes tools that help them navigate the digital era. 

Exploring this topic reminded me of an experience I had with someone who was deaf. I was 16 or 17 working the front counter register at McDonald's. A customer approached and handed me a sheet of paper with their order written out. At the top of the paper, it stated “Hi, I'm deaf. Can you please put in this order for me?” I looked up and smiled with a nod. After putting the order in, I pointed to the displayed total with as much hospitality as I could with my body language. The customer paid and then signed “thank you”. I smiled and nodded. Though, the customer seemed perfectly comfortable with our interaction, at that moment, I wished I had known some sign language to communicate more easily with the customer. It's clear that the customer has done this several times. This was back in 2009. Nowadays, McDonald's has kiosks on which customers can order. I assume this addition has benefitted the deaf community tremendously. No more having to write notes or deal with staff that may not treat them with the respect they deserve.

Along with the kiosks at McDonald's, the digital world has made great progress in creating tools with built-in features that make operating systems accessible to individuals with disabilities. Located in the settings of a Windows PC (personal computer) are several accessibility tools to help those who are handicapped. Focusing on the deaf community, below are a few features that are particularly helpful.

• Text size
• Adjusts the size of most of the text on the PC
• Captions
• Live captions for both audio and video
• Ability to adjust how a caption is displayed including:
• White text with a black background
• Yellow text with a blue background
• Small text written with all capital letters
• Text written with large letters
• Mouse pointer and touch
• Adjusts the color and size of the cursor
• Includes the “Touch Indicator”—a feature that displays a circle on the screen when it touched.
• Text cursor 
• A tool to help the cursor stand out, especially in dense text, by adjusting the color and/or size of the cursor

The built in features noted above effectively widens the world for the deaf community, as it gives them access to information that they wouldn't have otherwise. For example, “live captions” for both audio and video gives those of the deaf community the ability to watch the news online or gain information from a podcast. “Text size” adjust the size of text on most anything that is displayed on the screen. This could be helpful in navigating around the PC. I imagine the deaf community does a lot of reading when the majority of the population are hearing people. Sometimes having larger text reduces the burden on the eyes when staring at a screen all day. The “mouse pointer and touch” and “text cursor” features can also help with the strain. Using a large and colorful cursor makes reading from a screen a lot easier as the user would not have to strain to find the cursor or lose the spot in which they left off when reading and/or writing.

Recently, I came across an interesting article  that summarizes the findings of a study completed by Emilio Ferreiro-Lago and Sara Osuna-Acedo of National Distance Education University. The goal of the study was to learn the factors that affect the deaf community when taking online courses. The data of the study shows that “the reasons for . . . [dropping out of online courses] are many and varied but the most frequently cited is the lack of accessibility in on-line courses . . .” (Ferreiro-Lago and Osuna-Acedo, 2017).

Upon reading this, I brainstormed potential features that may help information retention for the deaf community in online courses. An idea I came up with is a built-in feature that displays images of ASL (American Sign Language) instead of captions for audio and video. Those who are deaf may learn better by reading signs than reading captions or an entire article. It’s the same idea as providing audio tapes to students who comprehend better when they hear articles, books, etc. read to them. It would it take a ton of work and time to create something like this. But maybe we will see it in the future. If not, I’ll start working towards creating it and getting a patent 😁.

Be sure to view and save the infographic below to use as a guide of available tools!

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References

Ferreiro-Lago, E. and Osuna-Acedo, S. (November, 2017). View of factors affecting the participation of the deaf and hard of hearing in e-Learning and their satisfaction: A Quantitative study | The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning. https://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2862/4434