Captioning for the DHH

Abstract

The main rule in Norway is that all ICT solutions have to be universally designed, and this is covered in the gender equality and anti-discrimination law. One of the most common faults in web-sites today are the lack of adequate subtitling of videos. Audio content have to be presented in different ways, without losing meaning and the captions must be readable by assistive technologies. When you are unable to hear, you also have problems to communicate with people who can hear, most of them are of are unfamiliar with the use sign-language. This increases the isolation of deaf people from society. Children and adolescents who are DHH gets poorer results at school compared to their peers with normal hearing. They are lonelier and struggling to join the community. Transcribing by ASR might make communication easier. During interviews, the response to Google’s beta version of a transcription app as well as the author’s prototype was met with overwhelmingly positive response. One respondent claimed that ‘It really would change the way she solves her communication problem; “I don't need as so much imagination as in an ordinary conversation”. A cheap an easily available smartphone app was considered as appropriate. The fact that many would know the concepts of transcribing and were familiar to dictating would make everyday life easier for the DHHs. Audio content have to be presented in different ways, without losing meaning. The captions must be readable by assistive technologies. A lot have to be fixed with the beta app before it gets accessible for all – if you are being depend of a braille it is nearly impossible to read the transcribed text. The speech recognition done by ASR is not perfect. The errors sometimes make the transcribing difficult to trust and may not be usable in more formal situations. Maybe a mutually approval of the transcription of both speakers are necessary.