Access for All: The Essentials of Accessible Communications
At Sea Change, we are intentionally developing our skills in accessible communications, ensuring that information and communication technologies (ICTs), as well as content, are usable and understandable by individuals with disabilities. This includes making sure that people with various disabilities, such as visual, hearing, cognitive, or motor impairments, can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with digital and analog information effectively.
We don’t always get it right! We sometimes hear from our readers when we miss the mark. We learn from our mistakes and continue to improve. In this blog we share some of the ways we are implementing accessible communications and the areas we still need to improve. We hope you and your organization or team will try something new after reading this blog!
Accessible communications eliminates barriers to information and ensures that everyone, regardless of their abilities, can participate fully in society and access the same opportunities as others. Designing and creating accessible communications is something individuals, businesses, and organizations can implement without a lot of extra time or money. Some of the examples of accessible communications in Sea Change’s work include:
Alternative Formats: Providing information in formats such as large print, audio, or electronic text to accommodate individuals with visual impairments. We aim to ensure that there are always multiple formats for our content, including video, audio, transcripts, and visuals.
Captioning: We add captions to videos to assist individuals who are Deaf or hard of hearing in understanding spoken content. We make a distinction between auto-generated and real-time captions.
Auto-generated captions are automatically generated by software, typically using speech recognition technology, without human intervention. While auto-generated captions can be quick and convenient for content creators, they may not always be accurate, especially in cases of unclear speech, accents, background noise, or technical terminology. There are a number of apps and tools that now create auto-generated captions, like the ones you can turn on in zoom meetings. Real-time captioning
Real-time captions, also known as live captions or live subtitles, are generated in real-time as the audio content is being spoken. This is achieved through the use of stenographers or speech-to-text reporters who transcribe the spoken words into text instantaneously. Real-time captions are typically used for live events, such as broadcasts, webinars, conferences, or live streams, where immediate access to accurate captions is essential for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Plain Language: We aim to use clear and simple language in written and oral communication to facilitate understanding for people with cognitive disabilities or those with limited literacy skills.
Sign Language Interpretation: As part of the registration process for every learning event, we ask people to identify any accommodations they need. Sometimes, this means offering sign language interpretation services for live events or video content to make them accessible to individuals who use sign language as their primary mode of communication. I wish we could add sign language to everything we do.
Assistive Technologies: Supporting the use of assistive technologies like screen readers, magnifiers, speech recognition software, or alternative input devices to enable individuals with disabilities to access information and communicate effectively. We do this by ensuring that our documents are screen-reader friendly.
Accessible Websites: An area we need to work on is our website! We aim to update our website to include features like screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, and text alternatives for images to support users with disabilities.
During recent recent research on accessible communications, we found many definitions and descriptions. Many have a focus on digital accessibility, and very few encompassed the full picture of both analog and digital communications. The image below aims to provide a brief, yet comprehensive model for accessible communications that includes plain language, digital accessibility, and alternative formats.
Accessible communications includes:
Plain Language– Text, formatting, and design of things we write and say is easy to understand and use.
Digital Accessibility– Technology and tools that make websites and online documents accessible for all users.
Alternative Formats- Making information available in different formats – printed online, video, audio, sign language, and captioning, for example.
Over the next month or two, we’ll be sharing Core Skills of Accessible Communication through our spring skill builders and self-paced trainings. We hope you can join us!