Did you know that many persons with disabilities use the Internet? Approximately 7% of people in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have some type of impairment, such as visual and hearing. But that does not exclude them from participating on social media and exploring the web. Their needs must be considered when building websites and services.
Web accessibility seeks ways to ensure participation and use of the Web by persons with disabilities, autonomously and with equal opportunities. The more accessible programs and websites out there, the greater and better their participation will be.
For persons with hearing impairments, videos and audios (such as podcasts) can represent an obstacle to their digital inclusion. If there is no sign language interpretation or subtitles (descriptive text), they won’t understand the message. Therefore, it’s important to develop sites with the option to subtitle videos and audios and for users to use this option. Increasing accessibility in the digital world is only possible if we all do our part.
When producing videos, podcasts, and other content that includes sound media, add subtitles or audio transcription. This process can be done automatically on several platforms and is a good alternative to increase accessibility, even if the quality is inferior to a human transcription. If possible, adopt a hybrid model, with transcription done via software and edited by a human. Make sure everyone is included in the network!
Learn more at:
https://ceweb.br/media/docs/publicacoes/7/20200528104403/estudos-setoriais-acessibilidade-e-tecnologias.pdf (portuguese only)
https://ceweb.br/media/docs/publicacoes/1/cartilha-w3cbr-acessibilidade-web-fasciculo-I.pdf (portuguese only)
Accessibility:
In the first scene, a girl waving is beside a TV showing the image of a city. Above, the phrase “Persons with hearing impairment watch videos” is shown.
A reporter appears on TV talking, but the girl cannot hear him. Question marks pop up all around her. The sentence changes to “And need subtitles to understand”.
The caption “Weather will be rainy” appears on TV, an open umbrella comes down towards the girl, who holds it happily.
In the second scene, a woman appears using her cell phone. Next to her, the cell phone’s screen is highlighted and shows a page to upload videos with the subtitles field filled in and, above, the phrase “Add subtitles when you post videos” is shown. The girl clicks on “upload”. The screen shows a cooking video with the following caption: “Add two spoonfuls.”
LICENÇACC BY-ND
Companies and organizations interested in participating can become partners in this initiative, adding their logo to a customized version of the videos, which can be published on their website or on other channels. Send us an e-mail parceriacidadaonarede@nic.br to request the application of your company or entity's logo to our videos.
