Thread Subject: Re: Agenda for today's AV subcom meeting

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From: Karen Peltz Strauss
Date: Fri, Sep 21 2007 5:20 AM

First, a product is not accessible unless it is usable by people with
disabilities.

Second, if a person is unable to locate the controls to activate the
accessibility features, how could it truly be called accessible? The demand
for easy access to a captioning control is not coming on a whim. It is the
product of years of not being able to figure out how to turn on captions on
various television devices. The problem is at its worst when trying to use
a television out of the home (presumably, if you own a television set,
somehow you have figured out how to turn on the captions, though my
understanding from consumers is that with new digital TVs even this can be
difficult or impossible, if there is no captioning button on the remote).
In the federal government context, there are going to be times when
individuals in business or hospital (VA hospitals) need to turn on the
captions. They will be unfamiliar with those television sets.
Accessibility must include a way to enable them to turn on the captions
without having an engineering degree.

Karen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sean Hayes" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
To: "TEITAC Audio/Video Subcommittee" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 6:28 AM
Subject: Re: [teitac-video] Agenda for today's AV subcom meeting


> We may wish for better usability in many aspects of products covered by
> 508. However the scope of 508 is not usability, and unless a usability
> issue has a specific impact on accessibility then it would seem to me out
> of scope.
>
> For TV and home entertainment, there are many after-market products which
> can replace a whole host of remote controls, I use such a system and they
> and significantly simplify use and setup. Such devices might even be
> considered assistive technology I suppose.
>
> Sean Hayes
> Incubation Lab
> Accessibility Business Unit
> Microsoft
>
> Office: +44 118 909 5867,
> Mobile: +44 7875 091385
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED =
> [mailto: = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = ] On Behalf Of Larry Goldberg
> Sent: 19 September 2007 19:28
> To: TEITAC AV list
> Subject: Re: [teitac-video] Agenda for today's AV subcom meeting
>
> The frustration is that "turning it on" sounds like a very straightforward
> proposition, but when that option is deeply buried in nested on-screen
> menus
> or requires powering off a device and selecting a hidden menu, it makes
> one
> wish for a button on the remote, or language that forces usability in
> addition to accessibility.
>
> ... Larry ...
>
>
> Dave Singer wrote:
>
>> At 12:56 -0400 11/09/07, Hoffman, Allen wrote:
>>> I think this reads worse than we want it to.
>>>
>>> In simple terms, people who are deaf want a "cc" button on the remote
>>> that turns on captioning for broadcast. Would this also turn on, or
>>> select, the captioning if this were connected to a media player? Its
>>> not quite as simple in this circumstance, so maybe we need to just limit
>>> this to:
>>>
>>> For systems which include caption decoding functionality and a remote
>>> control, a captioning button must be available on the remote that
>>> enables and disables captioning display from broadcast or other external
>>> inputs.
>>
>> Why must it be on the remote? Shouldn't the requirements say that if
>> there is an adaptation available, it must be possible for those who
>> need the adaptation to turn it on, or it must be on by default.
>
>
> - Larry
>
>
>
>

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