Television for All: Increasing Television Accessibility for the Visually Impaired Through the FCC\u27s Ability to Regulate Video Description Technology

Video descriptions allow people who have visual impairments to get the full benefits from television. Through voiceovers those who have problems seeing are told what is happening on screen allowing them to get the most out of viewing television. However, the Federal Communications Commission currently lacks the authority to require broadcasters to create video descriptions for their programs following the decision in Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission. This situation contrasts with closed caption which allows viewers with hearing problems read the dialog being said on screen. The FCC retained the power to regulate closed captions and as a result they are widely used. Many of the court\u27s reasons in Motion Picture Association of America are no longer compelling as a result of digital television transition. Video descriptions can become as widely used as closed captioning as a result of new legislation or increased funding

Lessons learned from blind individuals on videodescription

Audio-visual contents are made accessible to blind individuals with added videodeseription (VD) that translate the visual information into auditory information. We interviewed ten legally blind individuals (with and without residual vision) to monitor the quantity and frequency of infonnation needed in YD. It was found that residual vision and the complexity of the content have a significant impact of the level of VD needed. This suggests that a tool for the dissemination of VD must provide a basic level of information and also offer enough flexibility to confirm some information on demand

Making Short-Form Videos Accessible with Hierarchical Video Summaries

Short videos on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts (i.e. short-form videos) have become a primary source of information and entertainment. Many short-form videos are inaccessible to blind and low vision (BLV) viewers due to their rapid visual changes, on-screen text, and music or meme-audio overlays. In our formative study, 7 BLV viewers who regularly watched short-form videos reported frequently skipping such inaccessible content. We present ShortScribe, a system that provides hierarchical visual summaries of short-form videos at three levels of detail to support BLV viewers in selecting and understanding short-form videos. ShortScribe allows BLV users to navigate between video descriptions based on their level of interest. To evaluate ShortScribe, we assessed description accuracy and conducted a user study with 10 BLV participants comparing ShortScribe to a baseline interface. When using ShortScribe, participants reported higher comprehension and provided more accurate summaries of video content.Comment: To appear at CHI 202

Text-to-speech vs. human voiced audio descriptions : a reception study in films dubbed into Catalan

This article presents an experiment that aims to determine whether blind and visually impaired people would accept the implementation of text-to-speech in the audio description of dubbed feature films in the Catalan context. A user study was conducted with 67 blind and partially sighted people who assessed two synthetic voices when applied to audio description, as compared to two natural voices. All of the voices had been previously selected in a preliminary test. The analysis of the data (both quantitative and qualitative) concludes that most participants accept Catalan text-to-speech audio description as an alternative solution to the standard human-voiced audio description. However, natural voices obtain statistically higher scores than synthetic voices and are still the preferred solution

How a Diverse Research Ecosystem Has Generated New Rehabilitation Technologies: Review of NIDILRR’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers

Over 50 million United States citizens (1 in 6 people in the US) have a developmental, acquired, or degenerative disability. The average US citizen can expect to live 20% of his or her life with a disability. Rehabilitation technologies play a major role in improving the quality of life for people with a disability, yet widespread and highly challenging needs remain. Within the US, a major effort aimed at the creation and evaluation of rehabilitation technology has been the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERCs) sponsored by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. As envisioned at their conception by a panel of the National Academy of Science in 1970, these centers were intended to take a “total approach to rehabilitation”, combining medicine, engineering, and related science, to improve the quality of life of individuals with a disability. Here, we review the scope, achievements, and ongoing projects of an unbiased sample of 19 currently active or recently terminated RERCs. Specifically, for each center, we briefly explain the needs it targets, summarize key historical advances, identify emerging innovations, and consider future directions. Our assessment from this review is that the RERC program indeed involves a multidisciplinary approach, with 36 professional fields involved, although 70% of research and development staff are in engineering fields, 23% in clinical fields, and only 7% in basic science fields; significantly, 11% of the professional staff have a disability related to their research. We observe that the RERC program has substantially diversified the scope of its work since the 1970’s, addressing more types of disabilities using more technologies, and, in particular, often now focusing on information technologies. RERC work also now often views users as integrated into an interdependent society through technologies that both people with and without disabilities co-use (such as the internet, wireless communication, and architecture). In addition, RERC research has evolved to view users as able at improving outcomes through learning, exercise, and plasticity (rather than being static), which can be optimally timed. We provide examples of rehabilitation technology innovation produced by the RERCs that illustrate this increasingly diversifying scope and evolving perspective. We conclude by discussing growth opportunities and possible future directions of the RERC program

The Federal Institute for Access to Information in Mexico and a Culture of Transparency

In the family of freedom of information laws globally, Mexico is a leader, partly because of its Federal Institute for Access to Public Information in Mexico (IFAI) set up under the country’s new Transparency Law. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation asked an international team to study how IFAI has made a difference as the legislation furthers public understanding of government and provides for an informed citizenry. Evaluating performance was the first priority. But for an institution like IFAI to survive and flower and for it to make its greatestcontribution, it must also be perceived to be performing in accordance with legislative hopes. Two stakeholders—the “obligated agencies” or agencies covered by the underlying law and the public that uses the transparency law were canvassed as part of the study. We conducted a survey of the staff of IFAI itself as to its understanding of its role and performance. IFAI, as part of the architecture of government openness, has already contributed enormously to a culture of transparency in Mexico. That culture of transparency has contributed to undergirding democratic processes. Much of this progress is attributable to the Commissioners and staff at IFAI. They recognize, however, that there remain substantial opportunities to deepen and broaden this process. Our study seeks to make specific recommendations that will reinforce and advance what IFAI has alreadyaccomplished. Among IFAI’s important mandates are: resolving appeals of a denied request under the law, training public servants as well in access to information and protection of personal data, monitoring compliance with the law, promoting and disseminating the use of the right of access to information, establishing guidelines for the management of personal data, and disseminating information about how the Transparency Law works. The study focused on these particular mandates as a basis for framing recommendations. In particular, there is an emphasis on extending the work of IFAI to as many groups and citizens as possible to make the Transparency Law effective. This outreach must extend to public servants subject to the law and the community at large. Indeed, for a deeply ingrained, robust “culture of transparency” to be established in Mexico, IFAI must involve state and municipal governments to promote transparency on the local level. The Transparency Law is largely an accomplishment of the Mexican civil society that lobbied and won its passage. It is a law that stands for unprecedented public openness in Mexico’s history. The underlying hopes are that reach citizen throughout Mexico’s thirty-one states benefit, directly or indirectly, from the functioning of the transparency laws and the discipline and educative support of IFAI

Viblio: Introducing Credibility Signals and Citations to Video-Sharing Platforms

As more users turn to video-sharing platforms like YouTube as an information source, they may consume misinformation despite their best efforts. In this work, we investigate ways that users can better assess the credibility of videos by first exploring how users currently determine credibility using existing signals on platforms and then by introducing and evaluating new credibility-based signals. We conducted 12 contextual inquiry interviews with YouTube users, determining that participants used a combination of existing signals, such as the channel name, the production quality, and prior knowledge, to evaluate credibility, yet sometimes stumbled in their efforts to do so. We then developed Viblio, a prototype system that enables YouTube users to view and add citations and related information while watching a video based on our participants' needs. From an evaluation with 12 people, all participants found Viblio to be intuitive and useful in the process of evaluating a video's credibility and could see themselves using Viblio in the future

Resource Toolkit for Supporting Older Drivers in the Community: Promoting Safety, Independence and Well-Being

Report: 86 pp., digital file.This toolkit is a comprehensive document that will open readers up to the wealth of resources and opportunities available to mature drivers, their families/loved ones, health professionals and community members. With the understanding that senior resource coordinators have a range of knowledge and experience in this area, the information presented here intends to support both newcomers and veterans alike. This hands-on tool will help to demystify the process of providing support to mature drivers in your community.Transportation Options Network for Seniors (TONS