European Disability Forum
What is your Dreamed Accessible Television of the
Future?
EDF Report on the State of Accessibility of
Television for Persons with Disabilities
November 2012
“In the development and implementation of legislation and policies to
implement the present Convention, and in other decision-making
processes concerning issues relating to persons with disabilities, States
Parties shall closely consult with and actively involve persons with
disabilities, including children with disabilities, through their
representative organizations.”
Article 4 § 3 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities
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European Disability Forum
Table of contents
1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 3
2. Gaps in Accessibility of Digital Television Hardware ................................. 4
2.1. Complexity of Television Hardware ......................................... 4
2.2.
Complexity of Interaction Features .......................................... 4
2.3.
On-Screen Information ............................................................ 5
2.4.
Activating and Accessing Audio Description............................. 5
2.5.
Remote controls ...................................................................... 5
2.6.
Installation ............................................................................... 6
2.7.
Start Guides and Manuals ........................................................ 6
2.8.
Customer Support Centres ...................................................... 6
3. Gaps in Accessibility of Television Programmes ........................................ 6
3.1. Availability of Access Services in European Languages............. 7
3.2.
Audio Description .................................................................... 7
3.3.
Clean Audio ............................................................................. 7
3.4.
Subtitling ................................................................................. 7
3.5.
Spoken Subtitles ...................................................................... 8
3.6.
Sign Language Interpretation ................................................... 8
3.7.
Financing of Access Services for Persons with Disabilities........ 9
4. Looking Ahead: Accessibility of the Television of the Future ..................... 9
4.1. Connected TVs ......................................................................... 9
4.2.
User Developed Apps and Innovation .................................... 10
4.3.
Involvement of persons with disabilities ................................ 10
5. APPENDIX ............................................................................................... 11
5.1. EDF Position on Indicators to Check and Assess Accessibility of
Television for Persons with Disabilities is available in word format. .. 11
5.2. EDF Answer to the European Commission Consultation on the
Green Paper on the Online Distribution of Audiovisual Works in the
European Union: Opportunities and Challenges towards a Digital
Single Market, November 2011 is available in word format. ............. 11
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5.3. EDF Toolkit for the Transposition of the Audiovisual Media
Services Directive, September 2008 is available in word format. ...... 11
5.4. DPOD, the Danish organisation of persons with disabilities and
member of the EDF, has produced a policy paper on accessibility to
TV. It is available in Danish online...................................................... 11
5.5. Nordic organisations of persons with disabilities have
produced a report on accessibility to TV for persons with disabilities In
Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. It is available in Swedish
online. 11
5.6.
Contact Person at the EDF Secretariat: .................................. 11
What is your Dreamed Accessible Television of the Future? EDF Report on
the State of Accessibility of Television for Persons with Disabilities November 2012.
The document is available in English, and on alternative format upon
demand.
©European Disability Forum 2012. This document may be quoted and
reproduced, provided the source is given.
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1. Introduction
The European Disability Forum (EDF) is the European umbrella
organisation representing the interests of 80 million persons with
disabilities in Europe. The mission of EDF is to ensure persons with
disabilities full access to fundamental and human rights through their
active involvement in policy development and implementation in Europe.
EDF works closely to the institutions of the European Union (EU), the
Council of Europe and the United Nations.
2008 has seen the adoption of the Audiovisual Media Services (AVMS)
Directive with a provision on the accessibility of television programmes
for people who are blind, partially sighted, deaf, hard of hearing or deaf
blind people1. 2010 has seen an agreement between the EDF and
Digitaleurope, the organisation representing the digital industry in
Europe, on technical specifications for text to speech that is about to
become an international standard. 2011 was a pivotal year with the entry
into force of the United-Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities (UNCRPD) with article 9 on accessibility and article 30 on
participation in cultural life, recreation, leisure and sport. 2012 is the
European deadline to end the switchover to digital television.
Undeniably, steps in favour of better accessible television for persons
with disabilities have been taken in the past years. However, where do
we stand today? EDF thought that this was about time to take stock of
the improvements and remaining gaps: do persons with disabilities enjoy
television at the same level that their non-disabled peer? Despite the
UNCRPD, despite the AVMS Directive, despite the technical
improvements, the answer is still NO and persons with disabilities remain
eager to watch television, the mass media through which anyone get
informed and entertained, as anyone else.
This report is meant as a contribution to the current debates on
accessibility of television taking place European-wide and internationally.
It presents the everyday experiences of persons with disabilities watching
television and the numerous accessibility gaps remaining ahead.
1 Further information on access to television for persons with disabilities is available
on EDF website: http://www.edf-feph.org/Page_Generale.asp?DocID=13391.
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2. Gaps in Accessibility of Digital Television Hardware
Persons with disabilities hoped that digital television will solve the
accessibility problems they used to encounter. However, most of the
work is still ahead EDF found out. For blind people, the move to digital
television has even decreased TV accessibility since all operations run via
the screen. Choosing a channel, consulting the television guide, recording
are not possible anymore. Text to speech software embedded in the
digital television set or decoders would solve this problem.
2.1.
Complexity of Television Hardware
Complexity of television hardware is increasingly a problem. It seems to
be one of the biggest problems faced by persons with disabilities, as well
as older users and “late adopters”. It causes confusion, frustration, errors
and breakdowns, even preventing the user from watching programmes in
some cases.
With digital switchover happening across Europe, many people who were
satisfied with the limited functionality and simple operation of their
analogue equipment are being forced to switch to new digital equipment
which almost invariably has greater functionality and therefore greater
complexity. In many cases, the functionality provided by the new
equipment is far in advance of what the user wants or needs and the
complexity is far in advance of their ability to master.
It is typical to hear complaints that users cannot use their new digital
equipment or that it frequently stops working. They can get into a state
where the screen goes blank and they don’t know why, or a message is
displayed which they don’t understand and do not know what to do
about. This often causes them to lose the programme they were
watching and be unable to find it again.
2.2.
Complexity of Interaction Features
In addition to input devices, another area of complexity is interaction
design, audiovisual user interface, electronic programme guide (EPG),
applications (apps), etc. Although it is possible for persons with
disabilities to avoid using the EPG, menus, etc, and select channels in the
way they are used to by using the previous and next buttons on the
remote control, there is almost always a lot of extra information on
screen. Connected TVs for example usually have a home screen which
features a large number of icons and choices which can bewilder and
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confuse a user who just wants to watch television. Getting past this home
screen to the TV channels can be difficult and involves further
opportunities for wrong choices and input errors. Although many of the
icons will be familiar or guessable for most users – Movies, TV channels,
Facebook, Twitter, iPlayer, etc. – for those who have not previously
entered this enhanced digital world and do not want or need to, the
interface can appear as a confused jumble of coloured pictures and
words.
There needs to be a culture and a practice of always providing simplified
alternatives for input devices and user interfaces and always making
purchasers and users aware of the existence of these alternatives.
Because people often watch television using shared equipment in a
communal setting that includes persons with disabilities, both simple and
complex alternatives should be available as standard. In the case of user
interfaces, switching from one to the other should be very simple. There
is a good case for putting more research into personalisation of user
interfaces based on switchable user profiles.
2.3.
On-Screen Information
Persons with disabilities would like to be able to personalise the onscreen information depending on their needs (e.g. change the text size
and colour). This also covers subtitling (please refer to section 3.4 for
further information).
2.4.
Activating and Accessing Audio Description
Activating audio description is very problematic because it requires
selecting options from menus shown on the screen. Furthermore, the
procedure is different from one manufacturer to another one. For some
of them, audio description must be activated every time the person
wants to use it; for others, it is required to activate audio description
once only.
2.5.
Remote controls
Complexity of remote controls is also of particular concern. Purchasers of
TV equipment are often not given a choice of remote controls and have
to cope with controls that have many more buttons than they are used
to, too small and closely spaced for them to use without error. Simpler
options are sometimes available from the equipment manufacturers, but
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purchasers are often not made aware of this. Similarly, they may also be
unaware of third party simplified universal remote controls.
2.6.
Installation
Persons with disabilities are still unable to install their TV independently
and too often the help of a non-disabled friend or member of family is
needed to install a TV at home.
The possibility of installing your decoder from a tablet is an option that
might be interesting for the future as the interest in this product is
growing within the target group of persons with disabilities. Currently
existing apps are accessible but way too complex to use.
2.7.
Start Guides and Manuals
Start guides and manuals are still not provided in an accessible format for
persons with disabilities. The tendency is also to access the start guides
and manuals on the TV screens what is of no use if the TV hardware is not
made accessible at first.
2.8.
Customer Support Centres
Customer support centres should also be in a position and their staff
trained to answer questions from persons with disabilities. Customer
support centres should be able to give information about the equipment
needed to receive the facilities that persons with disabilities use to watch
TV.
3. Gaps in Accessibility of Television Programmes
Access services for persons with disabilities have appeared and increased
in the past years. Most of the national regulatory authorities have
defined quantitative target of TV programmes that must be made
accessible to persons with disabilities, what EDF is positive about.
However, persons with disabilities watching TV now have problems in
terms of quality. Thus, EDF consider that the quality of access services
need to be measured and metrics established to make sure that these
services produced really reach and are usable by persons with disabilities.
In addition, the scope of the AVMS Directive does not cover TV
programmes only. However, access services for other broadcasting
services have not been addressed so far. EDF notes that the value chain is
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very complex and different standards are involved from different
platforms, hence it is now time to engage with this new topic.
3.1.
Availability of Access Services in European Languages
Many European languages are not yet available for some access services
(e.g. audio description and spoken subtitles). Hence, EDF thinks that the
technology for live subtitling, spoken subtitles and translations between
European languages would benefit from more developed technology. It is
also important to have data from these “language data bases” available
as open data to promote innovation.
3.2.
Audio Description
Persons with disabilities would like a larger amount of audio described TV
programmes. Audio description should also be available in their mother
tongue.
3.3.
Clean Audio
One of the most common complaints from persons with disabilities
concerns clean audio. The audience would like to be able to separate
back ground sound/music from dialogue to be able to distinguish the
audio content.
Clean audio is not considered as an access service while it would be a
major improvement for persons with disabilities. EDF recognizes that
clean audio is complex. However, if we just look at the possibility for the
user to separate audio channels, it could also be used to control the
volume for audio description and spoken subtitling.
3.4.
Subtitling
Persons with disabilities lack live subtitling. This is a cause of major
annoyance in the time of worldwide event watched and talked about by
everyone: frustration in watching the Olympics is a repetitive complaint
from persons with disabilities.
Persons with disabilities have also noticed that on-demand TV is really
behind in the provision of subtitling intended for an audience of deaf and
hard of hearing people. They also would like to have the possibility to
record a program and maintain the subtitles.
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Persons with disabilities would like to enhance viewing during which
image track should be delayed in relation to the text track to make it
technically possible to stagger the time between text and image and
provide good correlation between the text and lip reading.
Persons with disabilities should be able to look directly at the faces of TV
hosts and guests (who is being interviewed by TV host) on the screen so
that they can read lips while reading subtitles or looking at
interpretation.
There is a need to improve the speech-to-text subtitling to avoid the
delay. Deaf people find it difficult to benefit from the service because of
the delay.
Persons with disabilities would like to have the possibility to choose the
position of subtitles on the screen. They also would like to get subtitles in
different colors since this would be easier to identify different persons
speaking.
3.5.
Spoken Subtitles
Spoken subtitles now exist on the market (e.g. Komfox and webox) but
not all of them offer the variety of languages spoken in Europe.
Even some subtitles cannot be read given the technique being used.
For some programme, the same voice is used for different characters,
which leads to confusion for the person with a disability watching the TV
programme.
3.6.
Sign Language Interpretation
Television programs should always be provided with sign language
interpretation for deaf people, especially deaf children.
Persons with disabilities would positively see the development of a web
based sign language / a widget or another technology that does not need
a separate channel for displaying sign language interpretation. For
instance, in Denmark, some challenges occur because the channel used
to sign language is only available for this purpose between 5 and 9 p.m.
Since it has been decided to display the interpreter in front of the TV, it is
not possible to show sing language on the channel commonly used. This
situation is rather annoying for sign language users who cannot watch TV
between 5 and 9 p.m.
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3.7.
Financing of Access Services for Persons with Disabilities
The cost of access services for persons with disabilities is often discussed
by service providers and manufacturers. EDF would like to draw attention
on good practice example coming from other countries (e.g. Canada).
4. Looking Ahead: Accessibility of the Television of the
Future
Television is evolving very rapidly: connected TV now interacts with smart
phones; there is a trend to go from watching TV to using TV.
However, EDF has so far seen very little developments in relation to
accessibility for persons with disabilities of web, IP and connected TV and
media, mobile TV, 3D TV, etc. EDF would like to remind that accessibility
should be thought of right from the onset to avoid exclusion of persons
with disabilities and costly adaptation later on.
4.1.
Connected TVs
The user interfaces displayed on connected TVs and those used by Webbased audiovisual services typically show a large variety of links to
services, functions and third party apps, displayed visually as icons and
text. The functionality and content of TVs is approaching that of
computers and websites so it is important that TVs and TV operating
systems adopt the same approach to accessibility as has been adopted by
computer operating systems and WCAG compliant websites. This
requires attention on both user interface functionality and content. For
user interface components, there needs to be a focus on providing
accessibility application programming interface and enforcing their use so
that, for example third party apps expose the names of their functional
parts to text to speech and other assistive technologies. Assistive
functions such as screen readers, magnification and colour control need
to be embedded deeply into the operating systems as fundamental
components. Good examples of this are found in Apple’s OSX and iOS, in
which access software such as Voiceover can interact with all functions of
iPhone, iPad and Mac devices. Content accessibility needs to be
addressed, including the content delivered by third party apps. This
should meet criteria similar to those in the Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines (WCAG 2.0).
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4.2.
User Developed Apps and Innovation
Currently, apps are being developed very quickly. They could play a
substantive role in enhancing accessibility for persons with disabilities:
user developed apps could support innovation. For instance, the
possibility of installing the decoder from a tablet is an option that might
be interesting for the future as the interest in this product is growing
within the community of persons with disabilities. Another example
comes from Sweden: an organisation, called Dyslexiförbundet, has a
state financed project for audio description and audio subtitles in the
cinema. They also developed another app to connect synthetic speech to
subtitles on the web. The project has also identified risk of fragmentation
due to standardization gaps.
4.3.
Involvement of persons with disabilities
Last but not least, EDF would like to recall the importance of user
involvement in the development of new devices. Persons with disabilities
are everyday users of TV and the organisations representing them have
the expertise about their needs. Cooperation between the user groups
and all other actors of the value chain is crucial to deliver an end-to-end
accessibility to persons with disabilities.
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5. APPENDIX
5.1.
EDF Position on Indicators to Check and Assess Accessibility of
Television for Persons with Disabilities is available in word
format.
5.2.
EDF Answer to the European Commission Consultation on the
Green Paper on the Online Distribution of Audiovisual Works in
the European Union: Opportunities and Challenges towards a
Digital Single Market, November 2011 is available in word format.
5.3.
EDF Toolkit for the Transposition of the Audiovisual Media
Services Directive, September 2008 is available in word format.
5.4.
DPOD, the Danish organisation of persons with disabilities and
member of the EDF, has produced a policy paper on accessibility
to TV. It is available in Danish online.
5.5.
Nordic organisations of persons with disabilities have produced a
report on accessibility to TV for persons with disabilities In
Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. It is available in Swedish
online.
5.6.
Contact Person at the EDF Secretariat:
Nadège Riche, EDF Policy Officer
Tel: +32/0 2 282 46 05, Email: nadege.riche@edf-feph.org
More information about EDF is available on www.edf-feph.org.
Should you have any problems in accessing the document, please contact
the EDF Secretariat (T: +32/0 2 282 46 00).
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