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Re: Visual and auditory dynamic range mapping

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From: Lynn Wehrman
Date: Mar 11, 2014 11:08AM

I would also find this interesting, being a migraine sufferer myself and because a number of our test consultants live with cognitive issues that are exacerbated by loud and persistent sound. The WCAG does cover sound regulation by the user here, defined by the sound not overpowering the ability of the user to hear their screen reader: http://www.w3.org/TR/UNDERSTANDING-WCAG20/visual-audio-contrast-dis-audio.html Not sure if that covers what you're considering.

Lynn Wehrman



-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of George Erwin-Grotsky
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 11:59 AM
To: <EMAIL REMOVED>
Subject: [WebAIM] Visual and auditory dynamic range mapping

Does anyone know of any research, white papers, draft proposals, or other work regarding defining accessibility standards to assist users with hypersensitive vision and hearing as is common with migraine?

I basically envision it as user settings for something like the maximum tolerable luminance and sound volume level. Add minimum thresholds of perception and you've got a user-defined range for the auditory and visual content to be mapped into.

This would also benefit users who don't suffer such perception issues. For example, gone would be the days of cranking the volume way up so you can hear a song that's mastered at a very soft level, then getting blasted with painfully loud sound when the next song starts (possibly even contributing to hearing damage). The volume adjustments would be made for you automatically. The original media would not be limited, just the presentation of it, and the full range of the content would still be available under user control.

This concept could be extended to compensate for other factors that can be problematic for some users, such as contrast, color deficiency, playback speed (audio, video, text-to-voce, animation, visual & auditory cues, etc.).

Certainly, there are many details to sort out and specify.

Reactions? Thoughts? Opinions? References? Resources? Interest?