I'm not here to talk about mobility and physical accessibility issues.

Although even I can see that this a pretty bad wheelchair ramp!

I'm here today to say that physical accessibility is only part of the game.

Just as you wouldn't make a wheelchair ramp that only goes halfway up the steps, you need to do much more to promote the independence and full social and economic inclusion of people who are Deaf or HOH.

This bizarre helmet supposedly helped focus by rendering the wearer deaf, piping them full of oxygen, and limiting their vision to a tiny slit. (From 1925)

This is me!

I left my kit at home today but......

I can certainly still see myself and many other deaf / HOH people in this photo! Hearing loss is a real barrier to social inclusion.

via http://news.distractify.com/people/scenes-from-the-past-you-never-expected-...

Hearing Loss is a sensory disability that means that people cannot hear and / or properly understand speech and other sounds.

It's often far less noticeable or obvious (or even invisible) when compared to physical disabilities, such as ramps and building accessibility for people in wheelchairs / with mobility issues and so on.

As a result, I'd suggest that it's often seen as a lower or lesser priority for action?

It's also complicated by the fact that to many people, when they see someone who is wearing hearing aids or who has a cochlear implant, then they believe that these people no longer have a hearing loss.

This is very wrong.

And I'm yet to meet anyone (even the most successful cochlear implant recipients that I know) still use captioning if and when it's available.

It also means that there is much less awareness out there about the true isolation and exclusion effects that hearing loss causes and how they impact upon your accessibility and inclusion strategies for the future.

A study found that (on average) people with an acquired hearing loss (typically age related) took more than 7 years to do anything about it.

It's vital to understand that most people who are Deaf or have a hearing loss do not (and won't ever) use sign languages, such as Auslan.

This means that captioning is the best answer (in most cases) for sensory and even some cognitive disabilities.

It is also far more inclusive in terms of providing support for people who speak languages other than English (LOTE), in noisy environments and when people aren't necessarily paying much attention.

Although, if possible, best practice = both Auslan and real-time captioning support would be provided.

Lack of awareness about captioning is probably the biggest #A11Y facing the world today.

In fact it sometimes seems to me that captioning awareness and action on accessibility and inclusion is like Monty Python's "Black Knight", the fabled knight who bars Arthur's passage as he travels around the country recruiting knights for the round table.

No amount of reasoning or explanations seem to move him - even when he's had both his arms and legs cut off!

Accessibility works better when it's not done "after the event" or as a retrospective add-on or fix.

It needs to be truly integrated and an equal part of the planning, building and implementation (and feedback) workflows and communication loops.

Yet another example of retroactively adding the accessibility layer.

It's usually always more expensive too!

Caption your TVC's - there's already an accurate transcript produced for FreeTV before your ad even airs - that's 80% of the captioning workflow!

Wasn't captioned on TV the other night when I saw it.

TVC Alcohol Education Campaign

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mECGf9q2R-E

What is Liquid Trade Waste?
http://www.byron.nsw.gov.au/what-is-liquid-trade-waste

Swap Market Vox Pops
http://www.byron.nsw.gov.au/videos/swap-market-vox-pops

BEST PRACTICES OFFER ACCESSIBILITY AS STANDARD

beta.tveeder.com

How to Start a Startup
by Sam Altman

http://startupclass.samaltman.com/

All of their YouTube videos are captioned.

Annotated transcripts on Genuis.

http://genius.com/Sam-altman-lecture-1-how-to-start-a-startup-annotated

#Serial Podcast - via This American Life

http://serialpodcast.org/

Transcripts via Reddit

YouTube
nomorecraptions.com

Why not try and make the official Australia Day events for 2015 fully accessible?

With live, real-time captioning on big screens next to the presenters?

#build #learn #build #learn

#bestpractice